


Next of Kin

by needleyecandy



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Ragnarok, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-01-29 14:12:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 30,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12632715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/needleyecandy/pseuds/needleyecandy
Summary: When Loki gets called to the counselor's office, he's sure it's just Thor being a jerk. Instead, they're both there to learn that their lives have just been changed forever: their father has died suddenly, and they are alone in the world, with no family but each other.Or so they think.





	1. Death Comes to the Odinsons

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting a fic when I don't have the whole thing already plotted out, so bear with me. Updates will be on the slow side, partly from me needing time to think about this one and partly from me being determined to finally finish a fic I started three years ago. 
> 
> Also, I have no clue about how any of this stuff works in the real world, so apologies to anyone wincing at my butchery. The internet is not being very useful with my particular questions.

It was a nice day out when their father died. Warm sun, a cool breeze, birds singing, and Loki had been outside eating lunch with his friends when he got called to the counselor’s office. He nearly turned around and left when he saw Thor sitting there in the molded plastic seat that always made him wonder how anyone could sit there long enough to get any guidance. “Really?” he demanded, pausing in the doorway. “You could at least have waited until I was in trig.”

It was the scared look on Thor’s face when he glanced up that made Loki slide into the empty chair. The counselor got up and closed the door and sat back down and told them. 

“I know the pain of losing your mother is still fresh,” she said as they stared at her. “Losing two parents in as many years would be difficult even for people who are at the age to expect it-”

“We didn’t lose our mother. She was murdered,” Loki said flatly. Thor wasn’t crying either. They’d both cried about their mother.

Someone from Child Protective Services came and asked about relatives. Thor handled it, answering their questions, no, no aunts or uncles, grandparents long since passed, no family at all. Just the two of them. Loki sat and stared out the window, ignoring them. There was a bird in the tree. He could see its little beak moving but he couldn’t hear a thing.

The CPS lady took them home that night. She said a message had been left for the family lawyer. The will should say what would happen to them. 

“I’m seventeen. I can get emancipated and take custody of Loki,” said Thor.

“We’ll see what’s in the will,” she answered.

She made noodles for dinner, tofu and bell peppers gleaming with red oil. The spiciness made their eyes water.

 

Loki didn't sleep that night. He spent it drinking the vodka he'd stolen and hidden under his bed. It had been almost too easy to get it; their father never kept track of that stuff the way their mom had. That was good, though. He needed it after what had been said at the funeral. It was his dad's assistant, Celeste, who let it slip. She was a cold woman who had frightened Loki when he was little, always looking at him. And then at his mom's funeral he found out she wasn't his mom at all. 

Thor said it didn't matter, that they were brothers and that was all that mattered. It was the sort of thing that was easy to say for someone who hadn't been lied to their whole life. 

He stayed up all night, taking the occasional swig of vodka and certain that any second Thor would come to his door. It was the sort of thing Thor did, pushing long after Loki made it crystal-clear that he wasn't interested in pretending to be _family_. 

There was a faint strip of sunlight at the top of the window when he heard the shower squeak. Thor. Loki went downstairs to start the coffee.

 

Ms. Jara was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her chin resting heavily on her fist and her dark eyes as bleary as Loki's felt. She looked at him. "A little young to get started with that, aren't you?" she asked.

"Just using you as a role model, I guess."

He expected her to lie, to claim allergies or something to explain away the puffiness, or to do that adult thing where they dodge questions they don't want to answer by turning the attention back on the person asking. _It's normal to feel like lashing out, Loki._ That sort of shit. He didn't expect her to snort at him.

"People aren't exactly beating down the doors to get at jobs like this," she pointed out.

That was fair enough. Loki sure as hell wouldn't want to do it. A gurgling from the coffee pot said it was done and Loki got up to pour. He'd learned to drink his black. She got up and got the cream from the fridge.

"We should leave some for Thor," she said when she saw how much he was filling their mugs.

"Thor doesn't drink it."

She shrugged and sipped off just enough from the top to make space for cream. She seemed comfortable in the silence that fell between them and it made him determined not to fidget. Trust Thor to break it.

"You couldn't have left a little?" he asked from the doorway. "Even just enough to drink while I started another pot."

Ms. Jara glanced over her shoulder, wincing at the sunlight streaming over Thor's shoulder. "Loki said you didn't drink it."

Thor looked at Loki. "Of course he did." Loki did that thing with his lips where he tried to make it look like he was trying not to smile. Thor hated that. Thor huffed and opened the freezer to get out more beans.

"What's your limp from?" Loki asked, ignoring Thor's pointedly dramatic noises behind him.

He got a long look from over the rim of her cup – the chipped one with the map of Norway that had been there as long as Loki could remember – before she answered. "Shot. I used to be a cop."

"Officer Jara?" Thor asked.

She tensed. "It really doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."


	2. Chapter 2

Ms. Jara took them to the lawyer's office even though Thor said he could do it. "Minors in my custody? I'm not letting you out of my sight until I pass you off to someone," she told him.

"Temporary custody," Thor pointed out.

"Job," she said.

Loki called shotgun and Thor slouched in the back seat, scowling at him in the mirror whenever their eyes met. Even with the windows down the car smelled stale. She had too many cigarette butts jammed into the ashtray for it to close all the way and one of the side mirrors was crunched into a useless angle.She looked relieved to see them go through the heavy wooden doors without her, sinking into a plush chair in the waiting room and grasping the glass of water offered to her by the receptionist with both hands.

The lawyer was standing behind his desk when they went in. He was of medium height – his eyes were at the same level as Loki's, and it was clear Loki was nowhere near done growing – and his hair was gray with streaks of white. He looked professionally compassionate. 

"Henry Rodriguez. I'm so sorry for your loss," he said, shaking first Thor's hand and then Loki's. Of course he could tell by looking.

"I'm Thor, and this is Loki," Thor answered. Because of course he wouldn't notice.

"Please, make yourselves comfortable. Can I offer you anything?" 

"Nothing, thank you. We were offered something when we came in," Thor said.

"Scotch," Loki said.

It knocked him off his game for a moment, his assured smile flickering before he repasted it across his face. "Mr. Carson, would you please bring in two ice waters?" he asked, holding down a button on his desk phone.

"We're fine. Could we just get on with our dad's will?" Thor asked, his voice sounding tight.

Rodriguez sat down too heavily for his smooth demeanor. Loki could hear him breathing. "It was against my advice," he began, and if there were any worse words to hear from a lawyer talking about one's future Loki could hardly imagine them. "After your mother's passing, your father was distraught, probably far more than you knew. Certainly more than he let you see. His last will had left everything to her, and when I broached the matter of creating a new one – specifying you two as his heirs – it was simply too much for him. He destroyed the old one right before my eyes and refused to make a new one. I think he felt... You mustn't blame him. Magical thinking isn't uncommon after such a loss. I think he felt that by not having a will he could protect himself from death. That he could stay alive for you."

"He didn't leave a will?" Thor asked.

Rodriguez shook his head.

"So what happens?" demanded Loki.

"The matter of your inheritance should be fairly straightforward. It will have to go to probate court, which will slow everything considerably, but I'll be there to speak on your behalf, and in this state everything will eventually go to the two of you as his heirs, once the court is done chewing things over. It's the matter of custody that is the real concern."

"I already thought about that. I can get emancipated and get custody of Loki," Thor answered quickly.

"Gross," Loki muttered.

"It's not an easy process," Rodriguez answered. A slight frown was crinkling his brow. "You have to make a strong case to the judge to have any hope of it being granted."

"But you'll help us, right? You can help me put together my reasons for doing it."

"Your petition. In the absence of either a will or a next of kin, as long as we can argue that you are responsible enough..."

Loki snorted and quit listening.

 

Ms. Jara seemed to expect them to do their own laundry and so there weren't enough towels in the bathroom and Loki's hair was dripping a cold line down his spine as he went down the hall towards the basement door. Two low voices – Thor's and another man's – were coming from the dining room. The family rarely used it, preferring to eat in the warm bright kitchen and leaving the more formal room for holidays and business dinners. The fact that Thor was in there with someone now meant something. Something serious. Loki stopped just outside the door to listen.

"But what about your education?" The other man was saying. "You're going to graduate a year ahead of him, are you planning to just put college on hold? The judge will ask about that."

"I've already thought about it," answered Thor. "The community college has enough classes that I can leave in the morning after Loki, be home before him, and still be taking a full load. They might not be my top choice classes, but they'll get my distros out of the way, and then he and I can go off at the same time."

"Mmm. And then there's the question of the business. We're keeping it going alright for now." 

"I think you can keep it going for a long time. Dad always said you were the real visionary of the company."

Ah. Heimdall. His glowing golden eyes had made Loki nervous when he was small, the way they seemed to see through him and stare straight into his mind. 

There was a rueful chuckle. "I don't even know how you got me onto this. I only came to offer my sympathies."

Loki almost missed Thor's reply, it was so quiet. "Who else do I have left to talk to?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A whole week? Gosh, I'm sorry. I don't think it'll be this long between chapters again.

Thor wasn't one to take hints easily. Oh, he noticed them – he wasn't stupid, whatever Loki tried to tell himself – but when he didn't like them he had a tendency to simply barrel on with whatever it was he wanted to do in the first place. That was why it took two weeks after their mother's funeral, two weeks of Loki ever more insistently pushing him away, before he stopped trying. And even then it was only because Loki slammed the door in his face.

It was just three days after Odin's funeral that Thor did the same to him.

 

At dinner Thor had been asking Ms. Jara about her experiences with emancipation petitions. “I have a good case, don't I? I mean, I have a good reason, and two teachers wrote me letters in support…” It had to have been clear even to her that he was mostly interested in reassurance; the court date was rapidly approaching and more than once when Loki passed his room, he saw Thor at his computer looking at sites about the experiences of foster kids. 

“It all depends on the judge,” she shrugged. “Some are pretty lenient, some almost never grant it.”

Thor looked at his hands. “But they have to care about keeping us together, don't they?” 

“It’s not like you're little kids. You've got a car, you can get around and visit. And you'd still see each other at school, as long as you don't get transferred.”

“But-"

“Look, all I'm saying is don't get your hopes up. Life has a way of letting you down.”

Loki went to his room after they finished eating and crashed on his bed to listen to music and try not to think. It didn't work. It was stupid that her comment about changing schools, of all things, would be what made it hit. Leaving this house, the only home he'd ever known, real family or not... leaving everything he'd ever known and all just because Thor's birthday wasn't until summer. The proposition was unsettling, to say the least. He got up and went to Thor's room. 

“Hey… I wanted to say…”

Thor looked up.

Pride was a bitter thing to swallow. “I wanted to say thanks. For doing this. Trying to keep everything together.”

Thor's jaw tightened. “I'm not doing it for you. “

 

 

Thor had used their dad's credit card to buy them new suits for the funeral, but the court didn't take long to freeze the account, so they appeared in court looking like someone else had died. "At least I look good in black," Loki told the long bathroom mirror as they finished getting ready. 

"Well, I don't, and I'm the one who has to make a good impression on the judge," Thor pointed out.

"Just show your dimples. Adults go crazy for that shit. They love kids with dimples."

"I'm getting too old for that, and you know it."

"Then wink. They love it when people out of their league flirt with them."

Thor's brow lowered. "And how would you know about that?" 

"Ah ai-ah uh," Loki said around his toothbrush.

They took their mom's – Thor's – car to the courthouse to make sure they wouldn't pick up the ashtray smell from Ms. Jara's car. "That's the last thing we need, the judge thinking we smoke," Thor had said when they were arguing over who would drive. 

"Fine. But I'm not sitting in the back seat."

At least she put on the radio when she got in, sparing them having to pretend that they were in any condition to make conversation. Loki could see Thor's lips in the rear view mirror, practicing his address to the judge. 

There was a metal detector at the door to the courthouse and once they were through it they split off from the stream of people headed towards jury duty, into an elevator at the end of a long hallway with a green marble floor. It was obviously a Public Works building, all Art Deco everything and murals depicting hardworking Americans like it was supposed to be inspirational or something.

They were assigned to room 204. It didn't look like a courtroom, more like some bland business meeting room. There was no Art Deco in here. There _was_ a woman in the front row of observers, watching them. Her hair was as black as Loki's, and she was well-dressed in a fitted black suit with an emerald blouse. Her eyes followed them as they entered the room and crossed to the table next to the lawyer Mr. Rodriguez had recommended. He could feel her gaze heavy on his back as he turned away and took his chair.

The hearing was weird. There were bits that were exactly like shows on tv and then something totally different would happen and throw off whatever equilibrium he thought he'd mustered. The judge asked a bunch of questions, first of their lawyer, then of Ms. Jara, and then Thor finally got a chance to stand up and talk. Loki wondered if the judge could see how Thor's feet were moving underneath the table. Certainly nothing above his ankles showed how nervous he was. At least not until he started talking without stopping for air.

"Your honor, I have a plan worked out for the next two years, until my brother graduates high school," he began, picking up the stack of papers in front of him. "I have a budget and a chore diagram and a calendar with all the due dates for bills and I already figured out my class schedule for community college next year so I don't have to put my education on hold because I know how important that is and I take it really seriously and I'm going to make sure Loki goes to college too and I have letters for you from my teachers supporting my petition and I-"

There was a sharp noise behind them, the feet of a chair screaming against unwaxed linoleum, and everyone turned, wincing, towards the sound.

The woman in black rose. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to clarify that the entire basis of this petition is that the two young men have no next of kin?" 

"That's correct," answered the judge, scowling at the interruption.

"Oh, but your honor," she purred, "I'm their sister."


	4. Chapter 4

The room went dead silent and Loki had to squelch a horrible impulse to laugh. 

"I trust you have some evidence to support your claim, ma'am?" asked the judge, still glaring at her. 

"Of course. If I may?" She nodded down at the low gate dividing the viewers from the front of the courtroom. The judge nodded to the baliff who opened the gate, and as she approached the front of the room she reached into her purse and produced a sheet of paper. "My birth certificate. You see we share a father."

"The same name doesn't prove anything!" Thor burst out. "It's not like he was the only Odin Borsson ever. And with him not leaving a will-"

"Calm down, please." The judge turned to the woman. "You do understand that I'll require additional evidence before I make a ruling."

"And I would want nothing less than your utmost care for my dear brothers." She was still purring instead of talking. Her voice made Loki's stomach twist. "I am more than ready to provide a DNA sample for comparison."

"This is crazy," Thor said. He looked over at Ms. Jara, who looked away.

"The entirety of your petition is based on you having no next of kin. As a potential adult sibling has now come forth I am postponing my decision until after a genetic test has proved or disproved her claim. The bailiff will take the three of you to the lab next door where you will have samples taken. Once the results are reported to the court you will be resummoned for my ruling on the matter of emancipation."

Loki felt almost like he were underwater, or watching everything through a pane of glass. Separate. But now he made himself break through the barrier and speak. "There's no point with me. I'm adopted."

"Ah, yes. Of course. You will remain with your court-appointed guardian while your brother and Ms.-" He looked down at the certificate in his hand.

"Dautha," she supplied.

"While your brother and Ms. Dautha have their samples collected."

The gavel came down and Loki watched as Thor was led away. "Text him. Tell him we'll be waiting for him outside. I need a cigarette," said Ms. Jara. 

"How can they do that? Even if she is Thor's sister, how can she just show up and have it be like she's always been there?"

"A lot of things happen in the world that seem like they shouldn't. Now can please you text him?"

Thor's name was still the first one that Loki's phone suggested to him. Sometimes he thought about sending barrages of messages to other people, just so they'd be his most-frequent contact and bump Thor off his pedestal, only he didn't want to acknowledge that he even noticed. _Waiting by car_ , he wrote. The parking lot was depressing but better than standing around outside the courthouse.

Ms. Jara leaned against the car and chain smoked until Thor appeared.

"Did it hurt?" Loki asked.

Thor shook his head. "Just a cheek swab."

Loki almost said  _too bad_ but there was something in Thor's tone that made him hold it back. The drive back to the house was quiet, no music this time, just the hum of the engine and the tap of Ms. Jara's nails on the steering wheel.

When they got back Thor went to his room and closed the door. Ms. Jara was in the living room but managed to be even less talkative. Loki went to their parent's room and sat on his mom's side of the bed. He still thought of it that way even though the bed had been just their dad's for so long. The covers on the other side were still messy from his final morning. Her side was kept neatly made; their dad had never gotten used to sleeping in the middle. Her nightstand was still there though the top had been cleared of her things. Loki had never opened the drawer before. He did now. There was a half-bottle of her perfume still inside. He sprayed it on her pillow and curled into a ball atop the blankets.

 

"Your suit's wrinkled," Thor said when Loki sank into his chair for dinner.

He shrugged.

"You're going to have to iron it. You can't look like that when we go back to court. We both have to look our best."

"You think it matters?"

"Of course it matters. If we look like we can't take care of ourselves, the judge won't-"

"Please," Loki snorted. "That's hardly the deciding factor anymore."

"Hela doesn't look anything like me," Thor said. He sounded like he was trying to sound assured. 

"Neither do I, and you never questioned that."

Thor's face darkened. "That's different and you know it."

"Anyway, the point is my stupid suit isn't going to make any difference. It's that test, and how much of Dad's life he decided to hide from us. If it comes back a match does that mean she gets a third of everything?"

There was a pause before Thor answered. "Why else would she want us?"

 

The judge talked a lot at the next hearing but Loki quit listening. Thor Odinson and Hela Dautha were half-siblings, Thor's emancipation petition was based on not having any family, and Thor and Loki Odinson were hereby given into the guardianship of Ms. Dautha. It was all he needed to hear. 

Ms. Jara had insisted on taking her car this time and she'd loaded her suitcase in the trunk. "Just in case," she said. And so the two boys trailed after their new sister and rode together in her car to the family home. She didn't need directions.

The three of them stood in the foyer as Hela peered through the open doorways. "And now here we all are together. Our happy little family," she smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly I have no business making guesses about how long the wait will be for updates. Rest assured that most of what I was doing, I'd much rather have been doing this. (Most but not all? [Yup...](https://thorki-anthology.tumblr.com/post/168260761586/one-of-our-contributing-writers-is-needleyecandy))

She walked into the living room and looked around, nodding to herself. "That couch will have to go," she said.

"Our mom picked that out," Thor said.

"You're welcome to move it to your room if you want. You're old enough to do what you want with your rooms." She said it like it was some grand offering, as though they hadn't been doing what they wanted with their rooms for years.

Thor's was too small, and Loki knew it. His friends always commented on it when they came over, how weird it was that the older kid had the smaller room, but Thor liked the big western window that let him watch approaching storms. The house wasn't really in the country, no matter what everybody said, but they weren't really in the city either. It meant there was nothing to impede Thor's view of the roiling clouds and arcing lightning. But it also meant Thor couldn't take the sofa.

"We can put it in mine," Loki said.

Thor cast him a grateful look and he nodded. Whatever else there was between the two of them – and there was a lot – it seemed neither of them was willing to allow their strange sister to add to their division.

She didn't miss their shared glance. “I'm so looking forward to learning all about you. And I'm sure you must be curious about me, as well. You must feel welcome to ask whatever you want.”

Thor didn’t waste any time. "What do you want with us?" he demanded.

"Why, darling. Only my rights. That's not so wrong, is it?" 

"Your rights. Do you mean the house? The business?"

"I mean the comforting knowledge that my dear brothers are being cared for properly. Surely you don't think that just because you didn't know about me meant that I didn't know about you."

Loki frowned. "If you were so interested in us, why wait until Dad died?"

She put her hand on his cheek. It felt dead, the skin paper-dry and the sort of cold that bit into his skin. "Because when he sent Mom and me away, he made it very clear we were to stay away. _Very_ clear. But when I saw the news that he had died, and left you two alone... I know you would have done your best," she said, turning to Thor, "but you shouldn't have to take on that sort of responsibility at your age. So now I'm here and I'm going to take care of everything."

Her hand was still on Loki's cheek and he jerked away. It caught her attention and with a shudder he thought of cobras.

"Do you boys like grilled cheese sandwiches?" The incongruity of her question made Loki blink. Thor didn't answer either and she smiled. "Of course I can fix something else for lunch. I just thought it seemed like a family sort of thing to eat for our first meal together."

Thor's voice was rough. "I'm not picky."

"I am," Loki said.

"Well, do you like grilled cheese?"

He almost said no, even though they were one of his favorites, but if she wanted to make a big deal out of a family lunch that was a good excuse to be there while she was cooking, which made it at least somewhat less likely she'd get a chance to poison them before she'd even moved in her stuff. "They're okay," he muttered.

They trailed her into the kitchen. "Perhaps you could fix us a salad while I make the sandwiches," she said.

"We don't have anything to make salad. Ms. Jara did the shopping and I don't think she liked it."

She arched her brow. The left one, the same one Loki always did, and just as effortlessly. "Is there anything green?"

"I think there's carrots and ranch."

"Carrots will do. I hope they're the baby ones," she answered, already turning away. There was a bag of sandwich bread on the counter, half-full, and the tub of butter next to it and she opened them. "Would one of you get me the cheese? I trust we have that."

"Yeah." Loki got the block of jack from the fridge and set it on the counter next to her where she was buttering the bread.

She looked down. "It's moldy."

"One corner. Most of it's fine."

Her voice was dry. "You sound like dad. What he never remembered about things is that the surface is just part of it. Sometimes mold can get down deep and you can't tell how far you need to cut away. It's like with paint. You can cover something over and make it look new, but what's underneath is never really gone."

"There's a new block in there. It's not a big deal. I'll get it," Thor said.

"But this is an important lesson, for both of you. It's my job to guide you now, and teach you things." She put down the butter knife and crossed the room, wedging herself into the space between the table and the wall that was never quite big enough. She lowered her hand and dragged it, palm out, along the wall. The paint was that pale kitchen-yellow and her rings gouged it away like bear claws. Underneath it was white with streaks of bright waxy crayon at the height of a small child. "And there I am. My first self-portrait. You see? I never really left."


	6. Chapter 6

Loki's World Lit class was reading Dante. Lunch with Hela made him think about it. Not Inferno – that would have been a little too apt, but Purgatory. Like sitting there while Thor answered her questions would be enough to pay off some of Loki’s sins. He knew why Thor was doing it. He was trying to sound her out, to get a better picture of this woman who suddenly had control over what felt like their whole world. Maybe even find a weakness. It was more than Loki could bring himself to do, even though he knew it was smart. 

“The new sofa's scheduled to be delivered at four. You'll need to have the old one gone by then,” she told them as they were wiping the last buttery crumbs from their fingers. 

Loki looked at Thor. His room was going to need twice that much time spent cleaning, at least. “We can do it,” Thor said. 

For a split second it was almost like before. Their mom used to say they had to be a miracle, not just siblings but time-separated twins, because there was no other way they could communicate so well without talking. That had made Loki happy, back when he was little. He'd idolized Thor. Looked up to him like a hero. 

Then he'd started looking at him like something else. 

They didn't talk much while they worked in Loki's room. Thor busied himself picking up all the clothes on the floor and hauling whole armfuls down to the laundry room, even the stuff Loki had meant to wear again, because it was faster than sorting. Loki followed in his wake, picking up books and piling them into rough stacks in the corner. That left the random shit that was always the real problem, and it was already three-thirty. 

“Just pile it on my bed. I'll deal with it later,” Loki said. 

Pens – Some dead, some not- and pencils and old notebooks and change and hair ties fuzzy with lint went flying, both of them scooping up handfuls and flinging them across the room. At three-fifty they were heading back downstairs, sneezing and sweating, but that didn't matter. They made it. 

It was awkward getting it up the stairs, the arms catching on the wall at the turn. Twice they had to stop and shift it around before it would go, but it did. It had to cut diagonally across the room and blocked the door from closing, but more rearranging would fix that too. They'd done what mattered, and they sank down and leaned gratefully back against their mom's favorite throw pillows. 

The crunching of gravel announced the arrival of the delivery van. Every year the county promised that this would be the year their road was finally paved, and every year the funding got spent on something else. They sat up and craned their necks to watch it get stuck in the shallow dip at the end of the drive, where anything much heavier than a sedan always ended up spinning its wheels. 

"Maybe they'll give up," Thor said as they watched. 

"Maybe they would, but _she_ won't. She'd probably make us go shovel dirt into it while they wait." 

"Yeah." 

The time change had been two weeks before and even though it was mid-afternoon the eastern sky was already a deep indigo. The van's lights jerked upwards and then settled across the driveway as it gained traction and lumbered towards the house. 

They fell silent again, listening to it approach, and then the whine of the engine as it was turned off. "What else do you think she's going to change?" Loki asked. 

"I don't know." Thor was staring out at the rising dark. 

"Shit. The bedroom. Mom's – their – stuff." 

Thor looked at him and shook his head. "I did it last night." 

"You did it last night? By yourself?" But then, why wouldn't he? 

"She seemed so certain. I didn't want to worry you if it was nothing, but..." 

Loki's face felt hot. "Just say it, Thor. _You_ did it because they were _your_ parents and so why involve the other one?" 

Thor's eyes always got even bluer when he was angry. At Loki's words a bolt of fury shot through them and left them almost glowing. "Shut up," he hissed. "Just shut the _fuck_ up, Loki. You're the one who keeps saying that. I didn't know. I found out after you did and you're the one who decided that it meant we're not brothers so just fuck you. You know, as bad as things are, for a second I actually let myself hope that that bitch down there might make things different between us." 

The delivery men were loud, the cold rattle of a shaky metal hand cart echoing up the stairs. The noise invaded the room and spilled across his skin. 

They didn't talk at dinner. Hela talked for them. “Had a fight, did you? I shouldn't worry. I'm sure you'll patch it up soon. Fights between siblings are soon mended. Or so I would guess. I never got the chance to learn for myself.” 

They went upstairs after dinner, claiming tiredness that they didn't feel. Or at least Loki didn't, not until he got to his room. His bed was still piled with crap and looking at it he was suddenly exhausted. It was too much and he couldn't face any more, not that night. He got a worn blanket from the cupboard in the hall, the pink satin edge binding soft and frayed with use, before stripping down to his boxers and curling up on the sofa. He wasn't used to going to sleep with his door open. There was too much noise from the hall, Thor in the bathroom brushing his teeth, humming tunelessly and spitting too loudly. He heard the rattle of the bathroom door and pulled the blanket up around his neck, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. It didn't matter. The back of the sofa was to the door, blocking his view, but somehow Thor still knew. 

“You can't sleep on that,” he said. “I've tried.” 

“Can too,” Loki muttered. 

There was a weary sigh that he told himself he didn't feel, inside. “Lo, come on. I've got room.” 

“I said I'm fine.” 

“Actually, you didn't. But anyway. Just come on. We don't have to talk or whatever.” And then he said the one thing, the one fucking thing in the whole world guaranteed to make Loki do what he wanted. 


	7. Chapter 7

Loki swung his feet to the floor.

“Thanks.”

Loki nodded. He hadn't braided his hair before lying down and it had already started to tangle, flopping in chunks around his ears. Without thinking he reached for the sweatpants that lived on his floor and his hand closed on nothing.

“I have some you can have. They don't fit me anymore.”

“Okay. Thank you.” He pulled the blanket around his shoulders and grabbed the pillows off his bed before he shuffled down the dim hall after Thor. Hela was still downstairs, silent. Thor stood aside to let Loki enter first. His room was as messy as Loki's had been and he realized the strange feeling in his chest was homesickness for something that had never really been.

“Which side would you like?” Thor asked.

“Outside, if that's okay.”

“Of course.”

They were being so polite, like they always were after a fight. It wasn't the same as being nice, but it was something. Thor fit himself into well less than half of his ample bed, leaving far more space than Loki needed. Loki curled up on his side and wedged a pillow behind his back. He always did that after reading that back-sleeping was linked to sleep paralysis. He didn't know if it was true but the times it had happened were terrifying enough that he'd been willing to try anything, and so far, it had worked. Thor's sweats were still too big for him but he didn't care. He almost liked it, the voluminous fabric swaddling his body and making him feel small and warm. Safe.

“Please, Lo. I don't want to be alone," Thor had said. That was all. And even with everything telling Loki not to soften, not to give in, he didn't want to be alone either. So he fell asleep and when he woke up Thor's broad hand was on his shoulder, like he'd woken in the night just long enough to draw the covers up around Loki's neck. The air had taken on a chill that spoke of frost on pumpkins and falling leaves, but his brother stayed so warm.

The alarm was a javelin in his ears and Thor lurched for it, taking away that big comforting hand. "Sorry," Thor told him awkwardly. "I didn't mean to, um." _I didn't mean to touch you._ Of course. Of course he wouldn't mean to.

"I didn't mind."

They went down together for breakfast and somehow Loki didn't mind the way that Thor stepped close when they found Hela already in the kitchen. The round kitchen table had the same four chairs as always. Their dad – Odin – had always sat in the one that put his back to the counter. It was the only one with arms. Hela sat there now, hands wrapped around her cup and icicle-teeth glittering.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

“Okay,” Thor said. The coffee was already brewed and he fixed a cup for Loki, oversweet, just how Loki liked it, along with his own.

Loki's usual chair was across from her. It felt defiant to sit there now, to refuse to let her presence change his usual morning when this morning was anything but usual. Thor was still rattling around behind him. "The freezer door doesn't always shut right," Thor said. "You have to hit it with your knee or the frost will make it freeze open." They'd had to tell Ms. Jara the same thing her first morning there. She didn't seem so bad now.

"I'll be sure to remember." She was looking at Thor and Loki studied her face, trying to interpret the expression. So many things that it almost was. Almost greed, almost envy, almost loathing, almost pity, and all he could settle on for certain was a sort of remote curiosity. Like going to a museum and staring at fish skeletons because there was a line to see the whale.

With a sharp yank and a crackle of ice Thor wrenched the freezer open. Hela's gaze turned back to Loki. She sat there, watching him, lips quirked in amusement. Loki stared back without meeting her smile. There were plastic sounds and then the pop of the toaster and then Thor was dragging his chair around to sit beside Loki.

“Last clean plate,” Thor explained as he set it down. It was covered in toaster waffles, and he'd hadn't given the butter time to melt before pouring on the syrup. Pale yellow flecks swam on top, oily iridescent streaks shimmering around them.

The two of them were a good pair for small spaces, their mom used to say, lefty Loki and righty Thor, they never bumped each other with their elbows. When room was extra tight they'd even work together to eat, taking turns with the fork while the other cut, their unneeded arms wrapped around the other's waist to bring them closer. _Shove over,_ one would say, and the other would make him space without a second thought. Thor had always been so easy to be close to. Loki's hand could still remember the changes in his brother's body, how the puppy fat of the roly-poly little boy had so slowly melted away into gangly adolescence and the way the solid muscle seemed to appear almost overnight, rock-hard but warm and so alive. And then there came the day when his hands were always empty.

Loki would have been happy eating in silence so of course Hela spoke. "Anything exciting at school today?"

Loki took another bite of breakfast.

"I have a test in Civics," Thor told her.

"I'm sure you'll do excellently."

"My teacher's really good. She makes things make sense and then it's easy to remember." That was how Thor talked. It led some people to underestimate his intelligence, an assumption which usually blew up in their faces. Even now, it was a thing Loki couldn't help enjoy watching. Like right now. He could see it in Hela's expression, how she was downgrading him in her mind.

"Favorite class?" Her voice was softer now, patronizing. Just a little.

"I guess so. I mean, it's definitely made me think about stuff differently. What governments should do, how they should work for people, that kind of stuff."

Thor and their – and _Odin –_ used to talk about it over dinner, what he'd learned about ethical governing, how it could be applied to corporate management. It was clear that Odin intended Thor to take over the company one day, even though Loki was expected to do... something, he wasn't sure what.

"And how about you, Loki?" she asked. “Anything exciting today for you?”

He shrugged.

Thor reached over and brushed his thumb across Loki's lip. "Syrup," he said.


	8. Chapter 8

School sucked that day. Overall Loki liked his teachers, but the classes were too big and they did their best but they were so overworked that by sixth period they were all exhausted; the cafeteria smelled like old lunch meat and stale milk; the usual stupid social shit (that Thor swore up and down got better by senior year) was thick in the air. The thing was, though… it sucked exactly the same as it did every other day. Its very shittiness, in the midst of so much change, was almost relaxing. He knew it was going to suck, and he knew _how_ it was going to suck, and it met his expectations when he didn't know what to expect about anything else in his life right then.

Thor had ninth period study hall, which meant he was one of the first people out the door when the bell rang because unlike Loki (and Mr. Zimmerman's _class goes until 2:43 and that's how long you're to be listening and taking notes_ ) he had his backpack ready to grab and run. It also meant he had the car warming up by the time Loki made his way through the masses of people and into the parking lot.

"How was it?" Thor asked as Loki swung himself inside. It was a while since he'd asked. No matter how things were between them he'd never made Loki ride the bus, but conversation was... something else.

Loki shrugged. "Same as always."

"Me, too."

"Homework?" Thor asked.

"Forgot I have a paper due tomorrow in history."

"How long?"

"Seven pages."

Thor winced. "I'd give you mine but she might remember."

"I don't mind. It's something else to think about, anyway."

"Yeah."

Loki swallowed. Thor was trying. He could try, too. "How was your test?"

Thor glanced at him with a pleased smile. "It was good."

Someone stopped to let Thor pull out in front of them – they always did that, eager for his friendly wave and hoping to be remembered later, preferably in front of a large group of witnesses – and it wasn't long before they were on the twisty road home. The worn wheels thrummed on the pavement and the hot air from the vent was dry on his eyes but felt too good on his face to turn them away.

"Why do you think she's here? What does she want with us?" Loki asked.

Thor sighed. "That's what I keep asking myself. She's, what, mid-twenties? And she doesn't really seem like the type to do anything out of the kindness of her heart."

"I don't think 'the kindness of her heart' even exists." It was meant to be funny, to ease things up a little.

"No. Me either," Thor agreed. "Which means it's something else that she wants."

“I don't like not knowing.”

Thor shook his head. “We have to watch. Watch and listen, as much as we can.”

  


When Thor pulled into his space beside the creaky oak and turned off the car neither one made a move to get out. "I guess we have to," Thor sighed after a long pause.

"Not very nice, is it? Feeling like the place that was your home suddenly isn't?" It wasn't until he'd spoken that it hit him how sad he sounded.   

"This was always your home. I always wanted you here," Thor said lowly.

"Really? Even when-"

"She's watching us. We should go." Thor unbuckled his belt and was out before Loki had a chance to finish the words. It wasn't a fair question, anyway. _Even when they brought me home?"_ He didn't remember. Thor swore he didn't remember a time without Loki and that much at least Loki believed.

Dinner was a show of niceties, conversation in which no one really said anything. The only thing he took away was the realization that Hela knew exactly what they were doing with their attempts at chatter, and she wasn't going to give them an inch.

"I'll take care of dishes. You go start your paper," Thor told him as their dessert spoons clattered into empty ice cream bowls. Hela had bought them ice cream in the middle of November and not even hot fudge sauce to cut the cold.

"Thanks," Loki answered. He cast Thor a grateful smile and disappeared upstairs.

He'd gotten all his other homework out of the way that afternoon, so that once he started the essay he could tear through it without stopping. Now he settled into one end of the couch, a soft throw over his crossed legs, and opened his laptop. He formatted the first page of his essay because once all the header stuff was there and two more lines were taken up with TITLE: SUBTITLE THAT MAKES ME LOOK SMART, then a third of the first page was done without any real work and it made him feel like he'd already accomplished something.

Thor's knock interrupted him. It sounded exactly how anyone who knew Thor would expect him to knock: bold, confident, and coming only after a slight shake of the door knob told of his almost forgetting to knock at all.

"Come in," Loki answered.

Thor came in with his school bag thrown over one shoulder and the handles of two steaming mugs clasped in one big hand. "Chamomile. I thought it might be good for us."

"Can't hurt."

"Can I have this end?" Thor waved vaguely towards Loki's feet.

"Sure."

Thor set their drinks on the floor and curled himself into the space Loki made him. Loki was afraid he'd try to talk – about what Loki had said in the car, about what Hela didn't say at dinner – but he simply rearranged the blanket over the two of them and got out a book. They sat there in silence, working, drinking their tea. And for a brief, brief while, that was enough.


	9. Chapter 9

Loki was almost done with page six when Thor stretched. He knew, without a doubt, that right that second Thor's shirt was riding up and showing a narrow strip of skin and he kept his eyes on his screen. "You need anything before I turn in?" Thor asked.

Loki looked at his bed. "Can you make that magically sleepable?"

Thor didn't bother looking. "Not unless I pick up your comforter and dump it all out the window. Just come over when you're done. I really don't mind."

"I will. Thanks." He gave Thor a tentative smile and Thor gave him one back, nodding a little before turning to leave.

It felt like the two of them really were doing better. And sure, okay, that meant Thor was doing his best, like he usually ( _usually_ ) did. Which meant the problem was Loki, just like he'd known all along, not that that changed anything. Maybe it was an instinctual reaction, their little tribe banding together in the face of a... a what? Was Hela an enemy? The worst thing he could say of her was that she didn't like their mom's sofa and if he were going to be honest Loki wasn't really into soft colors himself. The best thing he could say about her was that she'd stepped in and saved Thor from sacrificing the next few years of his life and, even more, saved Loki from watching Thor's resentment inevitably grow into hatred. That was worth a lot more than a piece of furniture, he wasn't so messed up that he didn't know that. And still the only thing he knew for sure was that when he climbed into Thor's bed the relief washing through his veins was for something far more than not having to clean up his own.

 

Thor’s alarm was set to birdsong. Loud. Bright. Utterly, disgustingly cheerful. “You're out to get me,” Loki moaned, dragging his pillow over his head.

Thor was already clambering over him, reaching for where his phone lay charging on the dresser. “Just because I don't wake up to funeral dirges,” he chuckled.

“They're Gregorian chants. Not funeral dirges.” He paused. “Not all of them.”

“Whatever you say.” Thor sounded way too amused for that early.

Loki showered first and he probably should have gone down to start coffee or breakfast or whatever but the thought was enough to make something twist unpleasantly inside him.

“Don't tell me you didn't finish it last night,” Thor said from the doorway. He was in his heavy terry cloth robe and was towelling his hair with all the vigor and finesse of a golden retriever shaking itself dry.

“I wanted to give it one more read through before I turn it in,” Loki lied. “Get me when you go downstairs?”

“Sure.”

Thor always dressed quickly once he'd taken care of his hair (which never seemed to need as much attention as Loki's did) and Loki hadn't even skimmed a whole page more before Thor was back in his doorway. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah.”

Thor led the way down. Loki wondered if he knew how tense the muscles in his arms were.

There was a ravine near the back of their property. They used to go back there to play, trying to catch minnows or pretending that this world, all green with leaf-filtered light, was their own private kingdom. Getting to it, though, meant navigating its steep banks, their layers of blue-gray slate always cracking and falling underfoot, ready to carry little bodies with it. He hadn't understood until he was older how treacherous it was.  _I didn't want you growing up in fear,_ their mother had explained when he asked once, years later, why she'd allowed them to go.

Thor had always gone first there, too.

Hela was standing at the kitchen sink. At the sound of their feet she twisted towards them. “I've been thinking. How would you boys like a dog?”

It would have been weird even if Loki hadn't just been thinking about dogs. He tried to picture her vacuuming up dog hair or putting a plastic bag over that elegant hand to pick up a pile of fresh-laid crap. But…

“I always wanted a dog,” Thor admitted. “But Dad was-"

"-allergic,” she finished. “I remember.”

 

"Jesus," Loki breathed.

"Yeah."

Thor was behind the wheel, his car stopped halfway up the drive, their approach halted by what was by far the largest dog Loki had ever seen. It had to be over a yard tall and at least two hundred pounds underneath a shaggy gray coat, and it was standing with its feet firmly planted and its eyes unblinking as it stared them down.

"I guess I thought she meant we'd go pick one out together," Thor said after a long silence.

"Yeah. Me too. Do we just sit here until it gets bored?"

Thor regarded it another moment. "It doesn't look like the kind of dog that gets bored."

They were still sitting there, pondering what to do, when the door swung open and Hela came outside. At the sight of her the dog's entire aspect changed, dashing towards her with what looked like little hops of excitement.

"So she can smile for real," Thor noted.

"Yeah. I think we can go now."

Thor drove forwards to his usual spot and they climbed out cautiously, ready to jump back into the car at the first sign of the dog coming towards them, but it stayed with Hela. It was tall enough that even with her height, rubbing its ears made her elbow jut out awkwardly.

"This is Fenris. Isn't he lovely?" she called to them.

"We kind of assumed we'd all pick one out together," Thor answered, ignoring her question.

"I know, darling, and I was looking for rescue groups to visit this weekend and I saw the listing for this sweet boy and I knew he was the one." Loki had let out a quiet snicker at 'sweet boy,' – far too quiet for her to hear – but she seemed to know all the same, and her eyes were fixed on his as she finished speaking.

"What is he?" Thor asked. The diplomatic one, as usual.

"They think he's a Mastiff-Wolfhound mix." She switched from rubbing his ears to cuddling his head. It nearly filled her arms. His eyes, half-closed in pleasure, narrowed to slits as they drew near, and a low growl rumbled from his chest. "He's still a little shy. I'm sure it's just because I was the one to pick him up and bring him home that he's comfortable with me."

"I've got homework," Loki said.

"Yeah. Me, too. Um... thanks for getting a dog," Thor mumbled.

She beamed at them. It didn't reach her eyes.

"I thought rescue groups make you do a bunch of questionnaires and house visits and stuff before they give you an animal," Loki said when they were safely upstairs.

Thor went over and peered out the window at the two of them still in the yard below. "He's not from a rescue. Look at them together. He was already hers."

It did make more sense. Loki nodded in agreement. Only... "Why would she lie?"


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised I'd finish! This year has been... well, the tl;dr version is still tl. But at least I didn't leave you on this cliffhanger. That's got to count for something.
> 
> Merry Christmas!

On Saturday they woke to the acrid stink of paint fumes burning their noses and turning their stomachs.

"Christ, what is she doing?" Thor groaned.

Loki dragged the blanket over his head. "I don't want to know."

"We can't stay up here forever."

"We could throw your mattress out the window, jump out, and run for help," suggested Loki.

It was supposed to be a joke but Thor paused like he was giving it real thought. "Three miles," he mused. "What could we say when we got there? 'Our sister moved in to take care of us and she got us a dog and she's painting?' It sounds crazy. And you know how much Mrs. Gregson liked dad. And... I mean, whatever else happened, it sounds like he was pretty shitty to her. Hela. Cutting off his own kid like that."

"Maybe he could see the future," Loki muttered darkly.

Thor snorted. "Maybe he could. But I think we have to go eat breakfast."

Going downstairs had become a trepidatious thing. Fenris never ventured upstairs, but he seemed to view the first floor as his domain in which the two boys were untrustworthy visitors at best and unwelcome intruders at worst. This morning he was sitting in the hall outside the living room door and he rose to his feet as they came down the stairs. His growl rumbled through the air, more felt than heard.

"What is it, boy?" Hela asked. Her head popped out of the doorway, black hair drawn back to keep it clear of the Pompeii-red spatters smeared across her gloves. "Oh, it's you. Morning."

"Good morning," Thor said. Loki wondered if Hela noticed the emphasis he put on _good._

"Come back when you're done with breakfast, would you? I need some things moved."

 _Some things_ turned out to be most of the furniture in the room, which of course couldn't just get moved once, because there was too much to simply shove it all to the center of the room, so they had to drag everything to whichever part of the room she wasn't working on at the time. By lunch it was a competition for which of them smelled more. They collapsed into the kitchen chairs with matching sighs of relief.

"Do we have ice cream? We deserve dessert for lunch," Thor sighed.

Loki nodded. "I think there's a tub of Rocky Road in the basement freezer."

"You stay there. I'll get it." Thor heaved himself to his feet and through the high archway. Loki heard voices, indistinct, and when Thor came back he had a look on his face that made Loki's lungs go tight.

"Fenris wouldn't let me go downstairs."

"What?"

"Fenris wouldn't let me into the basement. Hela played it off like he's just settling in and getting used to the house, but he let her go right past him. Hence, ice cream," he finished, setting the tub down. A shower of freezer-frost fell onto the table and instantly melted, darkening the rich green tablecloth.

"That's..." Loki met Thor's eyes.

"Yeah."

 

When Loki woke the next morning there was no smell of paint in his nose. Its unexpected absence made him alive to the scent of Thor's body in its place, the bright pine of his deodorant, the mint of his astringent shampoo, and beneath those cold fresh notes there was the warm ruddy hush that he was forever trying to quell. Loki closed his eyes and told himself he didn't notice.

"What are you doing today?" Thor yawned.

"I need to clear off my bed."

"Oh. Okay." Was that disappointment? Probably just because he got so warm in the night. Having his iceberg brother there probably kept him at a more comfortable temperature. Or maybe the thing about the basement had freaked him out even more than he'd let on.

It really was mostly crap, Loki mused to himself later. Half the work was testing pens, throwing out the dead ones, and tossing the good ones into his overflowing desk drawer. He did find two starbursts that were stale but still edible once he managed to force his teeth through the hardened pucks – the orange one even somehow tasted better than when they were fresh, more like orange sherbet and less like baby aspirin – and $7.62 in change.

He went to bed early because there was no reason to stay up and every reason to want escape, even if it was just into sleep. When things had first happened – their mom, and then the truth coming so fresh on the heels of the gut-shredding loss – he'd started taking anything and everything he could find in the medicine cabinet that promised drowsiness. They lived too far away from the city to run away for real, but losing himself in a drugged stupor was better than nothing. When Thor realized what was happening he flushed everything and it had never been discussed, but likewise it had never been restocked, so now he had nothing but his own exhaustion urging him between the sheets. It was cold in his bed, so cold after getting used to Thor's nearness. He wedged his body pillow against the wall and pressed himself up against it, curling into a ball. For some reason thinking of hedgehogs made him relax, their cheerful little faces and pert noses burying into their fat bellies and their spikes keeping them all snug and safe.

He woke to find himself flat on his back, arms and legs flung to the far corners of the bed and totally unable to move. He gasped for air, deep shuddering ragged gulps, and between breaths another sound.

Someone else was breathing too. His unblinking eyes were locked on the ceiling and as he stared, helpless, something loomed into the patch of moonlight that crept around the curtain. Bone-white skin. Hela. She stood there above him, eyes gleaming, lips stretched in a rictus mockery of kindness.


	11. Chapter 11

”It had to be sleep paralysis. My pillow was on the floor and I rolled onto my back. That makes people get it, sometimes.” Loki spoke as though it was Thor he was trying to convince.

“Even if it was just that, how'd it get there? Don't you put it by the wall?”

 

Thor had woken instantly when Loki had jumped into his bed, hands blindly seeking security and comfort while the adrenaline was still poisoning his veins. He couldn't even talk at first, just curl more tightly against the granite fortress of his brother.

“I must have moved it.”

“Hmm.” Thor sounded unconvinced. “How long was… whatever it was?”

“I don't know.”

It had felt like a long time – it had felt like forever - each suppressed and shuddering breath an eternity, but he had no real idea of how long he'd lain there frozen, before her venomous smile had faded into the shadow and he knew himself to be alone. Nor did he know how long he'd stayed there with the salt of cold sweat etching at his skin before he’d gathered the grit to launch himself from his bed and across the hall with his eyes fixed on the floor because he couldn’t face what might be there if he looked up.

The mattress dipped and Loki grabbed Thor’s arm. “Where are you going?”

“Getting your stuff. You can’t go back there tonight.”

“It was just a nightmare. I just need a little more time to calm down. I can’t sleep in your bed forever.”

There was a moment before Thor answered. “We’ll go to the hardware store tomorrow and get a lock for your door.”

It was the pause, more than the words, that made something twist in Loki’s chest. _Idiot,_ he told himself. “You should get one, too.”

“Okay.”

Thor climbed over him and the second he was out of bed Loki wiggled into the brother-shaped warm patch left behind, rolling onto his stomach and fitting himself entirely inside.

Gentle footfalls said that Thor was back.

“I moved,” Loki said, his voice muffled by the pillow, before Thor could try to climb back into his now-claimed spot.

“Heat thief. It’s okay.” Thor lay down beside him and covered himself in Loki’s blankets. “I got you some clothes for tomorrow. I don’t want you going in there until I’ve gotten a chance to check everything out.”

Not long ago Loki would have snapped at him for that, for treating him like a little kid who couldn’t take care of himself. But now it wasn’t the words alone that failed to come. The acidic malice that had been the only thing keeping him going for so long, that too failed.

“Thank you.”

Thor sounded cautious. “You’re welcome.”

“I mean it. That was nice.”

Thor’s next breath was louder, the ghost of a sigh, sad and happy and something else too quiet to hear. “Try to get some rest. You need it after a scare like that.”

And Loki was about to tell him that no, he should be the one to go to sleep, there was no way Loki could but one of them should, but the bed was warm and Thor’s solid bulk felt so safe and before he knew it there were soft sunbeams filtering past the curtains.

“Hi,” Thor whispered.

“You just wake up too?”

“I stayed awake. In case.”

“You should sleep now.”

“You’re done?”

“Yeah. Go ahead. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll feel better.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

Loki nodded and Thor smiled at him. “Okay.”

Loki climbed over him and when he glanced back from the door Thor was already half asleep.

Being alone was more unsettling than it had any right to be and he didn’t linger in the shower as he usually did. A good scrub to wash away the dull film of memory and then he was out and drying off. He hadn’t been awake enough to grab his clean clothes and so he tied one towel around his waist and another around his hair to keep it from dripping down his back before returning to Thor’s room to dress.

The air felt chilly against his damp skin and he studied himself in the small mirror on Thor’s desk as he gave his hair another round of squeezing. His eyes roamed over the narrow body that might not have seemed so if he hadn’t had Thor for comparison. Gangly limbs that promised more height, if not much more breadth. Goosebumps studded his arms and his nipples had gone hard and tight and he was about to let his hair down to pull on his sweatshirt when his eyes drifted to Thor's reflection. His brother was longer sleeping.

He'd seen Thor look at him like that once before. It was winter then, too, though a few weeks deeper in. Their mother had decorated for Christmas and the house smelled like sugar and warm spices and Loki had been curled up in an armchair finishing a library book when Thor appeared in the doorway. "Come on, cookies are done. Mom said we can have two each."

Loki had gotten up to follow him to the kitchen but he didn't move. When Loki got to the doorway Thor was still standing there and Loki looked up and there was mistletoe and when he looked back down Thor was looking at him too. Just like this. Like Loki was better than any Christmas cookie, and his heart skipped as he thought, _yes, he's going to,_ but then Thor made a little airy huff of laughter and the moment was over. It didn't even hurt, which Loki would have expected, because he did understand why Thor hadn't done it. They were brothers before everything and nothing, not even kisses, was worth risking that.

Two days later their mother was dead. A week after that Loki found out they weren't brothers at all and he was a tiny canoe in the middle of a giant ocean and he didn't even know how to paddle. He managed to meet Thor in the doorway again and if only Thor had kissed him, had shown him he was wanted, maybe he might have figured out his way to shore. He'd tilted his face up and parted his lips a little just like in the movies but Thor had just looked sad and slipped past him.

For two years Loki had thought he must have imagined that hungry look beneath the mistletoe and now here it was again. He met Thor's eyes in the mirror. "It wasn't my imagination. You did want to, that day," he said.

Thor didn't blink. "Of course I did," he answered harshly.


	12. Chapter 12

_Of course I did._

Loki had heard those words a thousand times in a thousand daydream variations on this impossible scene. They had come to him most often in the first months, when the only solace he could find was to curl up in his bed and lose himself in better things. In time his resolution had strengthened and his mind began straying towards venom in place of tenderness. That had been easier; a blanket of hate and anger allowed no nuance. He had fallen asleep swaddled in cotton-candy threads of fury and woken covered in their sticky sheen that protected him like an exoskeleton. But however much he might wish to deny those early dreams of love and acceptance and desire... however good a liar he was to others, he never managed to deceive himself as fully as he wished. 

Snowdrifts played heavily in his fantasies because he couldn’t come up with that many different scenarios in which they would find themselves unexpectedly falling down together and laughing as they hit the ground, so that Thor would be ensnared by the sight of red lips parted and welcoming. And then Loki would see how Thor was looking at him and he’d say, _You did want to, that day,_ and Thor would look at him all starry-eyed and put his hand on Loki’s cheek and answer (this was the main variety in Loki’s daydreams) tenderly or passionately or sometimes a little sadly before leaning in and kissing him. They’d forget all about the snow melting onto their skin until Thor would notice that Loki’s face was getting red and urge him inside. 

In none of Loki’s dreams had Thor sounded angry.

“You're mad?” His words were tentative. He watched Thor's reflection with uncertain eyes.

Thor's answering laugh was bitter. “Brothers don't do that. That first time when we didn't, it was like we'd both accepted that we couldn't because brothers don't do that. And I was okay with it, even though just the way you tilted your head was enough to get me hard. And then we lost mom and bam, there you were back under the mistletoe looking like you really expected me to do it that time.” He sighed and with it all the anger leached from him and left only a raw, raking pain. “I'd just lost my mother and then there you were telling me I had lost my brother, as well.”

A noise rose up in Loki's throat and he choked it back down. “I didn't mean… I'd just lost everything I thought I knew. She always made me feel loved and wanted and only when it was too late to ask her about anything, I found out she'd been lying to me my whole life. And then there we were under the mistletoe and all you had to do was lean down an inch and I could have had that feeling again. I just needed to know someone wanted me and you wouldn't give me that right when it mattered than anything. I never meant… I mean, I never thought…”

Thor snorted. “Of course you didn't. Of course you didn't think about how anyone else might be feeling.”

“Right after I found out everyone had been lying to me my whole life? Even my dead mother who I'd thought I could trust? Oh, I'm so sorry for being a little self-involved but I think I earned it.”

“Well, how the fuck do you think it made me feel? To find out they'd had me and then promptly went out to get a second baby somewhere else? I was barely one year old. What was so horribly wrong with me that made them be like, ‘hey, babies are great in principle but after this one we better not risk making another one ourselves?’”

It was a novel experience for Loki to be at a loss for words, but the thought that anyone, including Thor himself, might find him anything other than the embodiment of perfection turned Loki’s tongue to an lead weight. His earliest memory was of worshipping his brother. Whatever Thor did, Loki wanted to do too. If Thor wore a plaid shirt Loki had to wear a plaid shirt; if Thor decided he didn't like tomatoes Loki wouldn't so much as touch a ketchup packet. When Thor decided his favorite story was Peter Rabbit, the Little Engine That Could was instantly forgotten. Until the revelation and the brutal schism that followed it, Loki didn't even much mind when other kids tried to make friends with him to get to his brother. How could he blame a comet for trying to swing near when he himself was caught in the tightest possible orbit? And in all that time it had never occurred to him that the sun might doubt its own brilliance. 

Loki kept looking at Thor in the mirror. It was easier than looking at the real Thor; if it went badly now he could pretend he was talking to backwards Thor, peering out from Wonderland, and that when he turned back to the bed nothing would have happened. 

"Tell me I didn't fuck it all up," Loki whispered. "Tell me it's not too late."


	13. Chapter 13

“Thor?” Loki prompted when he didn’t answer.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say no. Tell me I didn’t fuck it up.”

Thor stared at him. “Are you serious? Of course you fucked it up. I tried so many times, gave you so many chances, and you just kept attacking me.”

“You were going to turn your whole life upside down. Until she showed up at the hearing you were going to give up so much to keep us together. That has to mean something.”

“I was going to do that because you’re my brother and I love you. It doesn’t mean I liked you.”

A knife to the chest might have been nicer.

“So that’s what you think of me? I thought we were doing better.”

“Before all this – mom and everything... Loki, I thought the world of you. But you can’t shit on someone forever and expect them to keep smiling at you. But yeah. We are. Doing better. Now.”

“Maybe she’s not all bad, then.” Loki was still talking to the mirror.

“Maybe not.”

“I didn’t know how you felt. If you’d just told me I wouldn't have been like I was.”

“Yeah. I could say the same thing.” Thor’s voice was wry, which was way better than mad.

Probably the best opening Loki was going to get. He turned around to face him. “Sometimes brothers _do_ do that.” He dropped his hair towel to the floor and the one around his waist followed it. He stood there, naked.

“That’s not fair, Loki,” Thor groaned. He rolled to his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

_Yes. This was working._ “Sorry,” Loki lied, approaching the bed. “Does it really matter if brothers do it, anyway? Does anything matter besides us both wanting it?”

“Maybe not.” And there, there was that softness he’d dreamt of.

What he had not dreamt of was the awkwardness. He’d always imagined Thor knowing what to do and doing it and no need for anything else, but now Thor looked about as uncertain as Loki felt and that, as much as anything else, made him know that this was real.

“What do we do now?” Loki asked.

The bed jerked with the twitch of Thor’s shoulders. “I think kissing is how people usually start. And you should get under the covers. You’re so cold you're shaking.”

He hadn’t realized. The room was chilly enough for goosebumps but that wasn’t what was making him shake. He put a damp towel on the pillow to keep his hair from getting it even wetter and when Thor held up the edge of the blankets he slid beneath them.

The flannel sheets were some their mom had bought, and age had given them a buttery softness that felt good enough on his bare skin to soothe the nerves that were rapidly rising in his throat. Thor rolled to face Loki, so close, and Loki was certain Thor would touch him but he didn't. He simply laid there gazing at Loki's face.

Thor didn’t wear much to bed, even in winter. An old tee and a pair of seventies-short shorts were enough for him while Loki was usually swaddled in sweats from neck to ankle and sometimes a hood for good measure. Until this moment, Loki would have said that his brother slept basically naked. Until this moment when Loki was naked and Thor was not. The sensation was exquisitely vulnerable. He felt far more undressed than he would have if Thor matched him. And that was nothing compared to how he felt beneath Thor’s searching eyes. People talked about having butterflies in the stomach but this wasn’t that at all; this was twisting and squirmy and it was somewhere in his guts or maybe his lungs or possibly both.

“Are you going to or what?” Loki demanded while he could still remember how to breathe.

“Yeah. Just looking. I want to remember.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll stop anytime you want, okay?” Thor said in a rush. “The second you don’t like something or don’t feel comfortable I want to know. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want.”

“I wouldn’t. You either.”

A gray cloud flickered through the heaven of Thor’s eyes.

The twist in Loki’s stomach turned into a knot and he frowned. “Are you scared?”

“Like you said, we’re doing better. I don’t want to fuck that up.”

Thor wasn’t supposed to be scared. Thor was supposed to barrel in, id-guns blazing, and think afterward.

Well, If Thor wouldn’t, Loki had to.

“We won’t.”

He’d pictured Thor gently cupping his cheek, and so that was what he did; he’d dreamed of Thor smiling at him as he leaned close to kiss him, and so he smiled as he rose up to rest on his elbow and leaned down. The shock of arousal that scorched through him the moment they touched, though - that was far beyond what he’d expected from such a soft brush of lips on lips. It wasn’t like he’d never made out with anyone before, and he’d certainly been into it even if part of him were secretly imagining someone else on the other side of his closed eyes. His eyes weren’t closed now.

Thor’s breathing had sped up and now as Loki moved back, just a fraction of an inch, Thor watched him hungrily.

“See?” Loki whispered. “It’s okay. Maybe better than ever.”

“That’s what I want,” Thor answered, and _there_ there it was, all the heat and passion of a thousand daydreams come to life all at once as Thor wrapped his hand around the back of Loki’s neck and drew him down and where the first kiss was powdered-sugar sweetness this was searing want and need and a bright, shining happiness. For the first time in a long, long time, it seemed like things might really be all right.

From outside came the crunch of tires on gravel and Fenris began to bark.


	14. Chapter 14

“No, don't. It's just the mail,” Loki said when Thor tried to sit up. 

“Since when do they come to the house instead of using the box?” 

Their driveway, just like all their neighbors’, was about a quarter mile long. The huge front yard were great for dogs and kids and fruit trees, but the rural route carriers had far enough to go without rattling down all those drives. Loki knew it as well as Thor. 

“But we were just starting,” he pleaded. 

Thor gave him another kiss, quicker than the others but filthy enough to almost make up for its brevity, and climbed out of bed. Loki flopped to his back - Thor's lips apparently had the power to turn Loki's bones to jelly – and quelled a shiver of memory as he watched Thor cross the hall into Loki's room to kneel on his bed and look out the window. 

The barking intensified and then stopped abruptly. 

“Thor? What's happening?” Loki hissed. 

“Hela just went out. Some guy's getting out of the car.” 

“What's he look like?” 

“Sssh, I'm trying to listen.” 

“You can't hear through my window,” Loki mumbled to himself. He'd tried often enough, not so much curious about anything being said as about whether it was possible, and he'd found that unless voices were raised he could hear enough to distinguish individual voices and make out about one word in five. 

An hour ago, if someone had asked Loki if there was anything that could have distracted him from wondering what Hela was up to, he would have laughed in their face. Despite his insistence when talking to Thor, he was nowhere near convinced that her appearance in his room had been a dream. Now he lay quietly watching Thor on his bed and trying to somehow read a clue about what was happening outside from the lines in his brother's body, he kept forgetting to read and simply stared. Powerful thighs with blonde curls creeping up from his calves but softer the higher they went, and almost none at all between them where they were splayed just enough to make Loki's mouth water. Tight round buns nestled in his shorts that were riding up on the right cheek to offer a glimpse of skin that Loki needed to bite as soon as possible. 

Thor slept with his hair in a ponytail to keep it from getting messy. It cut down on Loki’s ability to enjoy the sight of those golden locks catching the morning sun, but it meant his view of his brother’s glorious shoulders – no one who was only eighteen had any right to have gotten so broad already – was unimpeded. His erection had briefly flagged when Thor got out of bed but thinking about running his tongue down Thor’s bicep was bringing it back and he was just starting to reach for it when Thor went tense. 

“What is it?” Loki whispered. 

“Shit!” Thor launched himself from Loki’s bed and into the hall, closing both doors behind them and flinging himself onto his bed. 

“Did she see you?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She’s coming back in and I didn’t want her to hear the floor creaking.” 

Loki nodded. “Could you hear anything?” 

“I made out a few words. Not enough to tell what they were talking about.” Thor looked disappointed. 

An hour ago, Loki wouldn’t have known how to make him feel better. 

“We still know more than we did. We should celebrate.” 

“Celebrate that I half-saw someone through the tree branches and failed to eavesdrop?” Despite his words, the skin around his eyes was crinkling up like he was smiling. 

“It’s still another piece of the puzzle. Don’t you want your prize?” 

Thor grinned. “Is that what you are?” 

Loki gave his lips a deliberate lick and the way Thor watched the flick of tongue made him feel hot all over, so desirable he was almost dizzy with it yet also powerful. It was going to take him a while to get used to how it felt to be wanted back, so openly, by someone he himself wanted so very much. Or maybe he’d never get used to it. That would be better. 

“Oh, brother. How could I be anything less?” 

Thor was clearly getting turned on again so when he grabbed Loki and pulled him close, Loki was fully expecting to be kissed within an inch of his life and maybe some kissing on his neck – oh, yes, that did sound nice, Thor’s tongue measuring the frantic pulse at the base of his throat; he was not expecting Thor to hold him tight and bury his face in Loki’s hair. 

“You haven’t called me that in a long time,” Thor breathed. 

_Two years, one month, and four days._

It hadn’t even been intentional this time. Before, the word had slid from his lips as easily as did his brother’s name. After, he never said it except when speaking to others. _Yes, he’s my brother. I forgot my homework in my brother’s trunk. My brother stays late on Tuesdays._ But to his face he was always Thor. Strange, how adding the possessive made it less so. 

“I’ll say it every day. I promise. Can we make out now please?” 

That made Thor laugh as he relaxed his hold. “Well, seeing as you asked so nicely.” 


	15. Chapter 15

Thor was still laughing as he leaned close and brushed his lips against Loki’s, so gentle, so caressing. It was so much less than he had expected, this lightness, but the feelings it churned up inside him... when Thor did it again he couldn't help the sound that escaped his throat. Thor drew back just enough to gaze at him, heart in his eyes, before catching Loki's lower lip between his own, nuzzling and letting go and grabbing again, so light it could almost be ticklish. Loki’s hand caressed Thor’s face before moving downward to feel the pulse thudding in Thor’s throat, to stroke the hollow just under Thor’s jaw, lightly teasing.

Thor ran his broad hand ran down Loki’s side, slotting his fingers between the delicate ribs. Loki's hand roamed over Thor's back, first tracing the outlines of muscles through his shirt before sliding down and with a faint wave of shyness, sliding beneath it and taking in the softness of his heated skin. It felt just as he’d imagined all those furtive shameful times he’d let a soapy hand stray downward in the shower as he tried to force his thoughts elsewhere.

Only then did Thor deepen the kiss and their tongues met for the first time. Even that was light and unhurried, their tongues stroking and feeling each other. Loki grew almost drowsy with desire as Thor’s hand crept up, drawing little circles on the nape of his neck. Then Thor’s hands were tangled in Loki’s hair as they grasped and explored and held him close.

He could feel Thor’s body responding as they squeezed together, his cock barely constrained by his shorts. Another rush of desire seared through him and he breathed a moan. He felt Thor grinning just before rolling his hips, his cock even hotter, even harder than the rest of him where it pressed against his thigh.

Loki tightened his arm around Thor's waist, both of them twisting and turning, each of them rubbing himself against the other. Oh, it felt so good to be like this, to feel the warmth of Thor's body against his own and Thor's hands against his skin and Thor's breath stirring his hair. It was every kind of good at once, like the feel of swimming through cool water in a hot summer, and of sinking into a soft warm bed on a winter night, the first time he made himself come to thoughts of his brother and the look in his brother’s eyes when Loki first thought he might want him back. Laziness and excitement exquisitely entwined, and purring beneath it all the most delicious arousal.

The sheets were getting much warmer than they had been earlier and Loki shoved them back and broke away from Thor’s embrace to sit up and tug at the hem of his brother’s shirt. “Come _on,_ ” he demanded when Thor didn't move quickly enough, which set him to laughing again.

“It’s Saturday morning. We've got all weekend to enjoy this,” he pointed out.

Loki pouted at him. “If you don’t get naked, I’m putting on some clothes. This is totally unfair.” He was lying – it felt way too good to feel his skin against Thor’s, and there was no way he was going to let a pair of sweats get in the way – but he counted on Thor liking it too much to risk calling his bluff.

“Brat,” Thor chuckled. He sat up and raised his arms for Loki to pull the faded red shirt over his head.

His nipples were small and brown against the smooth golden expanse of skin and Loki was more than a little tempted to pinch one in retaliation but after a moment’s thought decided it would be better to lick. It was firm and salty against his tongue and the noise it got out of Thor was supremely satisfying.

“Remind me what I am? I forget,” he teased.

“Perfect. So fucking hot,” Thor groaned.

Loki smirked at him. "That’s better.” He ran his palm down the expanse of Thor’s stomach, letting it come to rest above Thor’s navel. He met Thor’s eyes to let him see the raw lust in his eyes as he dipped his pinky just inside the waistband of Thor’s shorts. “I want these off too.”

This time Thor scrambled to give him what he wanted. He was still kicking them off his feet when Loki’s hands were reaching for him and running down, taking in the feel of his ass and his thighs and back up again before he gripped Thor’s ass firmly, fingertips digging into the round swells of his cheeks as he pulled Thor’s body back against his own. It took only a little shifting around to get their cocks aligned and it was true that they had all weekend but Thor wasn’t saying anything about that now, just matching Loki’s movements as they rocked together, urgency building with each motion, their cocks leaking and the slipperiness making it even better until they were gasping into each other’s mouths to stifle their cries as they came, spilling across each other’s skin.

Thor held him tight as their breathing eased. His cock twitched a few times as it softened, tickling Loki’s leg and making him give a lazy giggle.

“Still okay?” Thor asked.

“Still better than ever,” Loki told him. “Don’t you think?”

Thor smiled back. “Yeah.”

“Told you so.”

Thor reached down and pinched his butt. “Brat.”

 

 

After the trip to the hardware store that Thor insisted upon (“I can just sleep with you, you’ll keep me safe,” Loki said, but, “not if I’m asleep. A lock will keep us both safe,” his brother far too reasonably answered) they spent the rest of the weekend making out. They went downstairs for meals and to grab snacks to fuel them through what they claimed to Hela were massive amounts of homework. They always went together in case of... they didn’t know, but it felt better. But they only ever found her sitting at the secretary in the living room, mouse clicking frantically or sharp nails clacking against the keys.

On Monday morning when they went down to eat, she was at the table in a business suit, her breakfast already halfway gone. “Time for me to get used to going to the office,” she said with a glittering smile. “Time to pick up from dad.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's got two thumbs and forgot to post this chapter after writing it?

Loki could feel Thor blink. “Oh,” Thor said. 

“Um, I’m sure the people there will appreciate the family still being involved, but won’t there be laws and stuff about how to handle things like this?” asked Loki. 

“Well, we’ll just see how things go.” Hela's voice was oily, like an algae-slick rock in a slow-moving river. It brightened as she asked, “So what’s exciting at school today?” 

Loki shrugged. 

“I have a quiz in trig,” Thor said. 

“I hope you got some studying done this weekend.” 

_She knows,_ Loki thought, but he wasn’t about to address it if she wasn’t. “He did.” 

“I’m so pleased to hear it. And you, my other dear brother? What does the day have in wait for you?” 

He shrugged again. “I have a lab today in chemistry and we’re picking groups for a project in history.” 

“I never took chemistry, myself. I did AP Bio instead. Got a five on the exam. I liked it. Learning about life and death.” 

_Mostly death, I bet,_ Loki thought. 

It was easier than thinking about the fact that she still sounded proud of her score; that it wasn’t that long ago she’d gotten it. That she wasn’t really that much older than they were. Thinking about her being into death was easier than wondering what happened to make her seem so much older than she was. 

She left them in relative peace after that, picking up her phone to read while she ate absentmindedly. There was coffee left in the pot and Thor poured it while Loki stuck a couple freezer burritos in the microwave and thoroughly distracted himself from his darker thoughts by checking out his brother’s biceps. 

It was a confusing tumult of feelings and he had no idea where to even begin working them out. Their dad’s death hadn’t hit him like their mom’s had, but sometimes Loki would find an ache inside him where he didn’t expect it, something lacking that he hadn’t known was ever there. Hela moving into their parents’ room – Thor finally clearing out their mom’s things to make room for this unknown quantity that had come to take her place – had scraped the scar off that older wound and set it to bleeding once again. About Hela he was wary, uncertain of almost anything except that she was not to be trusted. And yet against all those things Thor stood so strong, so bright. It felt wrong to be so happy in the midst of grief and it felt stupid to be so excited in the midst of danger but he had _wanted_ so very long. They deserved to have something good and happy and exciting. 

On school mornings they tended to run late and make up for it by eating without coming up for air, as their mother used to say. This morning’s silence was different from what they’d grown used to; there was no need for speech to say all they needed. Thor said it with the oversized glop of cream he’d dumped in Loki’s coffee, and Loki said it by having rummaged through the fridge for Thor’s favorite salsa that he’d previously hidden behind a jar of apricot jam while in a fit of pique. The air was rich with crinkly-eyed glances and smiles that stretched across hamster-packed cheeks. 

Thor had three bites left of his burrito when he looked up at the clock. “Mmmf. We’re late,” he said with a full mouth. Loki jumped up and followed him to the hall, both of them chewing, to grab their jackets, then back to the kitchen to work on another bite while pulling them on. 

Hela had gone to the living room and now reappeared with a satchel, the chrome corner of her laptop gleaming from one end where the flap hadn’t folded smoothly. “I’m heading out now too,” she said. “We can make a little caravan into town.” 

They headed to Thor’s car while she locked the back door of the house. 

“What do you think she’s doing now, going to the office?” Thor asked quietly. His breath froze as he spoke, sending soft puffs spiraling into the sky. 

“I don’t know, but it means she’s not in the house. I want to know what’s happening in the basement. We’ll have time before she gets back to work on getting past Fenris. ” 

Thor’s eyes lit up. “You’re right.” 

His face stayed bright until they were in the car and slid the key into the ignition. The dash lit up like always, but the engine stayed silent. 

Loki looked at him. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s not even trying. Hear that? And it’s not the battery, that’s fine.” 

“Try it again.” 

“I _am_ trying it again, it’s not working,” Thor said. 

“Wow.” 

“Huh?” 

“You’re so hot when you get frustrated.” 

A grin crept into the corners of Thor’s mouth. “You think so?” 

“Oh, I know so.” Loki was halfway leaning over the cupholders without even realizing he’d moved, drawn as helplessly and naturally as by gravity, when there was a sharp rap on the window. He jumped back and saw Hela standing outside the car, peering in. He gave the sticky crank a single turn. 

“Car problems?” she purred. 

Reluctance filled Thor’s voice. “Must be a loose connection. Doesn’t want to start.” 

“And you with a quiz first period! Get in mine, I can take you. We’ll have to get it towed. In the meantime I’ll take you to school, and” - here she paused, long enough that there was no mistaking the intention in it - “if you need to do any special errands you can just tell me what they are.” 


	17. Chapter 17

He looked at Thor. Thor looked at him.

“You can have shotgun.” _Shit._ Loki had spoken before he could stop himself. Old habits dying hard and all that.

Hela was watching them closely so Thor had to act like he appreciated it. “Thanks, Loki. That's really nice of you. Of course, it does make sense, my legs being so much longer.”

_Double shit. Did that dig mean he was pissed?_

Loki trailed behind the other two as they crunched across the drive to Hela's rusty black car, trying to read in Thor’s shoulders if he was mad about having to sit in the front beside their troubling sister, but they told him nothing.

Loki took the seat behind Thor and once Hela's eyes were on the road he reached forward and gave his brother's hair a light yank. _We're still okay, right?_

Thor turned and threw a smile over his shoulder. _Yeah. Don’t worry._

He leaned back, relieved. Plus the chances of Hela trying to kill them while she was in the car with them were probably lower than any other time they were near her so that was another reason to relax. She turned on the radio so they didn’t have to talk, and soon the radiator was sending gusts of warmth to curl around him.

When they were a block from the school she turned down the music. “Can you meet me at five at the office? Why don't you take some friends to Starbucks, I’ll give you some money. It'll be nice to go out some before you're stuck home over break.”

 _Of course she drinks Starbucks,_ Loki thought.

“My car should be fixed by then,” Thor said.

“Well, we'll see.” Hela pulled over in the dropoff zone and dug in her purse. “Here's a twenty for you to share.”

Thor thanked her and they climbed out, Loki stretching his lanky legs to the curb to avoid the filthy gutter. Thor, blasé as ever, stomped cheerfully through it and somehow avoided getting his shoes dirty. A week ago Loki would have glared. Now he was happy that his brother wouldn't have to spend the day with wet feet. Maybe that's what love is, he thought.

“I assume you want to go to Café Nirvana instead,” Thor said as they trudged up the faded brick steps of the school.

“Or somewhere else, but I’m not drinking fucking Starbucks.”

“Nirvana it is. I know it's your favorite.”

Loki smiled at him. ”Good luck on your quiz.”

“Good luck with getting good people for your group.”

“Thanks.”

It was less than two days – forty six hours, nineteen minutes – since things between them had changed. It already felt strange not to kiss goodbye.

 

The other thing that felt strange, Loki mused over his afternoon coffee, was that he didn’t have to remember not to flirt; he just had to remember which ways of flirting were okay. He could laugh at Thor’s jokes a little too long, and when he stopped laughing he could let his eyes keep shining, but he couldn’t tilt his head or twirl his hair. A playful kick under the table looked perfectly brotherly, even though running his foot up Thor’s calf was not. They were there nearly two hours, flirting, wanting, before it was time to go meet Hela to go home. And so of course the minute they walked in the door there was only one thing they could possibly do.

“There’s a lot of dirt getting tracked in. Before dinner I’d like you boys to sweep the entryway and vacuum the hall,” Hela told them as they headed for the stairs.

“Okay. I, um, just need to go upstairs a minute first,” answered Thor.

“Yeah. Me, too,” said Loki.

It was easy to get lost in making out. So, so easy to get lost in Thor's kisses and the feel of his hands, huge and warm and so very gentle, sliding up the sides of his ribcage. But it really couldn't have been much more than ten or fifteen minutes before traces of garlic and lemongrass began wafting up the stairs and making their stomachs rumble.

“Come on. We can pick up right here after we're done,” Thor promised. As he spoke he dragged the tips of his fingers across Loki's nipples so of course Loki didn't want to agree but Thor was taking his hands away and standing up before Loki was able to do much more than whimper. He stood and followed his brother reluctantly down the stairs.

Hela fixed them with a look. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Um... getting something to eat?” Thor answered. He leaned over the dishwasher to get clean plates even though the shelf had some. _That's for me,_ Loki thought with a thrill.

“I don’t think so. I asked you to do two simple chores. Are they done?”

“We’ll do them right after dinner,” Loki answered.

“We’ve been home for over two hours, so now you’ll do them instead of dinner. I’m not angry, but you need to learn. You’ll want to go to bed early tonight. The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner it will be time for breakfast.”

Thor barked a laugh. “You’re joking.”

She picked up the lid, set it on top of the skillet, and took the plates from their hands. “I’m not. It’s how I learned, and my mother never had to repeat a lesson.”

It was the first time she’d mentioned her mother – their dad’s previous... wife? Girlfriend? - and Loki wanted to pursue his curiosity but Thor was already stomping off to the hall.

“I have some candy in my desk. Let’s get this over with and we can eat that,” Thor muttered.

They did their chores with a maximum of noise to make sure Hela didn’t get a peaceful dinner and then made a beeline back upstairs. “I’ll clear off the couch while you get your candy,” Loki said.

They sat in Loki’s room, methodically working their way through a partial bag of fun-size Snickers. “I mean, she was creepy before, but this is the sort of thing we can actually report. Do you think we can report it?” Loki asked.

“They already gave us to a total stranger, do you think they’d care that she made us miss one meal?”

“I don’t know,” Loki admitted. “It’s probably even worse for you. I mean, at least she’s not my real sister.”

A peal of laughter rippled from the doorway and they looked up to find her leaning against the frame, arms crossed, eyes amused. "Oh, darling. How adorable that you really believe that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how hard it was not to put in a line about Bucky admiring Hela's eyeliner, but it simply refused to work smoothly with the rest of the chapter. Oh world, oh life.


	18. Chapter 18

Thor was the first to find his voice. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

She laughed again. “Oh, nothing. But you two should have seen your faces.” Her gaze dropped to the cushion between them where the bag of candy bars lay. “And don’t think I don’t see those.”

They waited in silence until the tell-tale stair creaks - three in a row, too many to climb past, to the perpetual dismay of boys unable to sneak out at night like all their friends did, her reaching the upper floor without them noticing meant they needed to start paying _way_ more attention – before speaking.

“What the fuck?” Loki breathed.

“Yeah. And I’m not...” Thor trailed off.

Loki finished for him. “Not convinced that it was nothing.”

“Yeah.”

“You think dad cheated on mom?” Loki asked weakly. The chocolate in his stomach gave a rapid churn at the thought and he clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from being sick.

“I don’t know what to think. I think we need to start looking up everything. Dad, Hela... are adoption records public?”

“I doubt it, but I can try. I don’t have lab tomorrow, I’ll go to the computer room and see what I can find.”

Thor brushed a lock from Loki’s cheek. “Thank you, Ki,” he murmured.

Loki managed a smile. “You’re welcome, Tor.”

Sharing a bed felt only slightly less obvious than a neon sign blaring **INCEST** now, even though they’d been sharing one without a moment’s thought only a few days ago. But Thor was the one certain thing in a world that seemed to have turned to jelly and Loki really, really didn’t want to be by himself.

“Will you sleep with me tonight?” Thor asked, as though on cue. “I feel like you’re the only thing I know for sure right now.”

“I know what you mean. Yeah.”

Loki had expected to sleep tight in Thor’s embrace; instead it was his brother who curled up against his chest, breath warm on Loki’s stomach and Loki’s arms around him. Loki fell asleep with his lips pressed to Thor’s hair.

 

The school had a subscription to the online versions of both local papers, but the archives went back less than ten years. Loki discovered this less than two minutes after the bell rang, which meant he was stuck in the computer lab for the whole period with nothing to do but play educational games.

Loki’s locker was on the far side of the school from his last class, and by the time he had shoved his way through the mass of people shoving towards the doors, he found his brother waiting beside it, looking far too hopeful for the lack of news Loki had to give him.

“The online stuff doesn’t go back far enough,” he said flatly.

Thor swore and kicked the bank of lockers loudly enough to make the last stragglers jump and stare. “Main library? They must keep old papers.”

“We’ll have to hurry.”

The sidewalks were slushy and rock salt crunched beneath their feet as they marched down the long blocks, and there was something in the air that promised more snow soon to come. Thor’s face was red and Loki’s nose was running by the time they got to the old building, the colonnade and high, graceful windows marking it out as a Carnegie. A sign inside pointed the way towards the newspaper room and they went down the unfamiliar hall.

“Hi. We need to look through some newspapers from... seventeen years ago, I think,” Loki told the smiling man sitting at the counter. His dark hair was receding and one side of his mouth came up higher than the other. His nametag had a much younger photo of him. _Julius,_ it said.

“Sure. Those will be on microfilm. Have you used our index before?”

“We didn’t even know you had one,” Thor answered.

“Most people don’t. I’ll show you how to use it and once you know what reels you need, I can show you how to use the machine.” He swiveled his monitor around. “So, you can limit your search to individual papers or keep it on all of them, and you can search by keyword, article title, or article author with this box here. Cool?”

Loki nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

There were three free computers. They took the one on the end, where no one could see what they were looking at without it being obvious.

Their last name came up with a hundred and thirty-seven results. “Every time Dad had the business make a public donation, I bet,” Loki groaned.

“We have to check, though.”

Thor jotted down the reel numbers – twenty-four of them, there was no way they were going to get through them all today before they had to meet Hela, it was already a quarter to four – and then said, “We should look up Hela, too. Never know.”

Loki leaned forward and pecked in _Hela Dautha._

**No results came the answer.**

Loki looked at it a moment before leaning forward and deleting _Hela._

Title: POLICE SHOOTOUT LEAVES 2 DEAD, 1 INJURED

Publication: GREENVALE TIMES

Date: 03 JUNE 2008.

Page: A1, A2

Reel: GT 32235

“Bingo,” Loki whispered as Thor stifled a whoop. They added the reel number to their notepaper and went back to the desk.

“We have a four-reel limit,” Julius told them, his smile brittle once he saw their list. “Which would you like to start with?”

“The bottom four, please,” Thor said. “And if we’re lucky that’s all we’ll need.”

He brightened. “I’ll be right back. Go ahead and get settled at that machine there,” he said, pointing.

Thor dragged over one of the computer chairs and they put their coats over the backs while they waited.

“You as excited as I am?” Thor asked, grinning at him.

“At least.”

Julius appeared from behind the desk with a stack of small boxes in one hand. “Okay,” he said, leaning between them. “Here’s how you turn the machine on, and then you load the film by following the diagram here. Which one do you want first?”

Loki pointed. “That one, please.”

They watched as the machine was loaded and Julius showed them how to move forward and back. “And then to rewind you can just hold this down,” he finished, tapping his finger against a button.

“Thank you, sir,” they chimed.

“You’re welcome, boys.”

They waited until he was back behind the desk before looking at each other. “Go for it,” Loki said.

It took Thor a minute to get the hang of the speed – it seemed like the film should have snapped before going anywhere near that fast, but it was loud enough Julius had to have heard it and he didn’t seem to mind – but before they knew it they were on June second.

“Slow now,” Loki said.

“I know.”

Thor gave it another brief whirl and then started clicking through frame by frame, still June second but now in section F page 11, page 12, page 13, page 14, and then they were on the front page of June third.

“Oh my God,” Loki said.

It was the article they were looking for. And there, right beside it, was a photo of Ms. Jara.


	19. Chapter 19

There were photographs of two other women next to the one of Ms. Jara, though Loki only noticed them once the snowball-to-the-face shock of her picture had worn off. He didn’t recognize the others, or their names in the captions below, so he turned to the article. For a front page story, it wasn't long. 

_One police officer is dead and another hospitalized after an early morning shootout that occurred while processing a group of warrants for the arrest of five top members of a criminal ring, including the woman authorities say was the group's mastermind. This morning's action was the result of over two years work on the part of the late Detective Brownhilt and her partner, Detective Jara, according to Police Spokesman Greg Bryant._

_Arrest warrants issued for Angrabotha Dautha and her associates Greg Helgurson, Jon Washington, Ananda Shinawatra, and Antona Williams charge them with planning and executing twelve high-profile robberies, but they are thought to have been responsible for up to forty. The group traveled widely to commit their crimes, which resulted in difficulties creating a profile. It is highly unusual for a ring of this nature to be cracked by local law enforcement rather than the FBI, due to jurisdictional limitations; when questioned by this reporter, Bryant explained that the two detectives scoured a wide variety of news reports and were in constant communication with peers around the country._

_The group's 2009 robbery of a Christie's auction house, thought to be their single biggest heist, is estimated to have netted over forty-five million dollars' worth of goods. How the stolen goods were liquidated is not yet known. Police are hopeful that suspect interrogations will result in more information._

_An unnamed minor, who was on the scene at the time but whose connection to the group is currently unknown, has been taken into custody._

“That's got to be Hela, don't you think?” asked Thor. 

“Makes sense,” Loki agreed. 

_Detective Brownhilt, who died before emergency services arrived, was an eight-year veteran of the force. She and Detective Jara were together at the police academy and were partners for their entire tenure with Greenvale PD. Detective Jara is in stable condition after suffering a spinal injury which is expected to require several years to fully heal. A m memorial for Detective Brownhilt will be held at Quiet Grove Funeral Home, 1414 Washington Drive, on June 6 at 3pm. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations to Detective Jara's physical rehabilitation fund._

“Fuck,” Loki said. “And that's why Ms. Jara is like she is. Except why didn't she tell us she knew Hela? She could have warned us or something.” 

“She must not be able to talk about it,” Thor said. “That's why she drinks so much. Trying to forget.” 

Loki nodded. The elephant in the room was sitting right between them and he wasn't entirely sure how to address it; Thor had always been much closer to their father. 

“Do you think that's why Dad broke up with her? He found out and didn't want to be involved? It would explain why Hela is so angry. If he cut off contact with her mom, it would have meant cutting her off too.” 

“It wouldn't have had to,” Thor frowned. “And it wasn't just cutting off contact. Loki, I know what's in the basement. We have to get down there. We have to get evidence we can take to the police.” 

Having the answer to one of their mysteries should have felt better. If only it were a different one. “Yeah. I still wish... I wish there were something about me.” 

Thor turned to him and when he spoke his voice was fierce. “We'll find out. I promise. But until then, remember that you're my Loki and that's all that matters. Say it.” 

“I'm your Loki, and that's all that matters,” Loki replied, trying to feel it inside as much as he believed it in his head. “And" – he glanced at the clock and gasped- “we're going to be late.” 

When they arrived, lungs burning and faces freezing from running through the cold air, Hela was in the lobby, leaning against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows with her arms crossed and the heel of one shoe tapping against the floor. Her phone was in her right hand, a manicured talon scrolling too quickly for her to be reading. 

“Okay, this is it. Act natural,” Loki said. 

Thor grinned at him. “I always act natural.” 

Loki sighed and gave himself a moment to bury his face in his hands before trotting after him to catch up. 

“We're really sorry we're late,” Loki blurted out before Thor could speak. “Thor was giving me a practice quiz for tomorrow and that's the only reason we lost track of time and it won't happen again so please let us have dinner.” 

That last bit, he thought, was a stroke of genius. It was true that he'd prefer not to go to bed hungry again, though at the moment it was the least of the things he cared about, and it also was a good cover in case she noticed them looking nervous. 

“All right, I'll let it slide. This once. _Only once_ ,” she answered. 

She had them cook dinner as well as do their usual cleaning up afterwards (“I was standing in that lobby for twenty minutes in new heels. I'm ready to put my feet up”), but she didn't seem to suspect anything. She even seemed relatively lighthearted that evening, which wasn't saying much, but it was there all the same. As good a time as any to ask about the car. They were going to need to get away the second they got something to take to the cops. 

“I'd like to get my car repaired this weekend,” Thor said. “I can get it towed on Saturday and one of my friends who lives in town can give me a ride home if it's going to take a while.” 

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? I've already called my garage and the earliest they can fit it in is a week from Thursday. These guys really are the best so I told them we'd take the appointment. So you're stuck riding to school with me a little while longer. Not too much, though, only three more days until Christmas break. Then you won't need to set so much as one foot outside for two whole weeks! You can just relax in our nice cozy house. Won't that be nice?” 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for typos, my cat is using my computer to watch bird videos on YouTube so I had to proofread on my phone.

There was nothing to do but act like everything was fine. They had no real clue how much she suspected and they couldn't risk tipping her off.

“Thanks for taking care of that,” Thor said. “It was really nice of you.”

“And you're right, it will be nice to not have to go out in the gross slush every day for a while,” added Loki.

God, everyone was saying _nice_ a lot when none of them meant it.

It was a good point about break, though. What was she expecting to happen? Was she that confident about Fenris keeping them out of the basement that she'd leave them alone all day while she was at work? Was she planning to stay home and work on… _something_ in the basement? And if she was, did she really expect them not to notice? What would she do if they made an innocent comment about all the time she spent down there? It did seem – from a few long glances, a few arch smiles – that she knew they were involved. Was she trusting teenage hormones to keep them busy upstairs? Loki's brain was burning with questions and he was itching to talk this all over with Thor but first they had to clean up from dinner while looking like everything was normal. So they scraped the leftovers into a Tupperware and cleared the table and clattered the dishes into the machine, all while chattering as though they didn't have a care in the world. Loki turned up the flirting, too, making a show of it. Thor’s responses showed that he knew exactly what Loki was doing.

“Would you turn the disposal on for me? My hands are _all wet_ ,” Thor asked, pitching his voice extra low and sexy.

It was unfair that Thor could do that to Loki’s knees with something as pedestrian as talking about the dishes.

“You need to grind something down? Sure, I can help you with that,” Loki murmured. He watched as Thor swallowed visibly. Good. Now _that_ was fair.

Hela stayed in the kitchen for a while, lingering over her small evening glass of something clear and horrible from a bottle Loki couldn’t read (he had made an obligatory attempt at theft but discovered that it smelled like caraway seeds; he took this as further proof that she was evil) but when she was almost done she stood and picked it up.

“I've got some work to do at my desk. Don't stay up too late, okay? I want to hear about a good result on that quiz tomorrow.”

“We won't,” Thor promised.

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” they answered, and then there was the clacking of her shoes receding down the hall and they were alone.

“What the hell is going on?” Loki hissed.

“I wish I knew. What do you think the chances are she actually scheduled all that?”

“I would say low, but... she can only act like everything is normal for so long.”

“And if the tow truck doesn’t come when she said it will? What’s she going to do then?”

Loki grimace. “I’m not sure I want to find out.”

“It’s scheduled for eight days from now. I think we better find some evidence and get out before they’re up.”

“We can’t risk waiting around the house for someone to pick us up.”

“No. As soon as we have something solid, we start walking and calling our friends with cars.”

“And there’s Fenris,” Loki pointed out.

Thor paused. “There’s a nail gun in the tool shed.” He looked sick at the thought and Loki was reminded again of how very gentle his brother could be.

“Only if we have to. Self-defense.”

“Yeah. Only for self-defense.”

Loki’s hand was soapy but he put it on Thor’s arm anyway. “If we have to... I mean, I’ll do it.”

“No. It’s my job to look after you.”

“It’s _our_ job to look after each other,” Loki said. He saw Thor’s hesitation and added, “I need to keep you safe just as much as you need to keep me safe.”

Thor leaned over to kiss Loki's cheek. His lips were firm and soft at the same time and Loki was getting distracted by how nice they felt when they started to move.

“I want your cock in my mouth right now.”

Loki didn't know what the noise was that he made in reply but Thor seemed to like it, turning his attention back to the last few dishes with a distinct smile on his face. That was something they hadn't done before. They'd been moving… not _slowly_ \- it was impossible to say that with how quickly they'd been naked and rubbing against each other once they'd agreed – but with the intention of fully savoring each new thing they did. There was such an exquisite pleasure to be found just in hands when they were the hands of one who had been so long desired, so very long believed to be hopelessly out of reach.

“Yeah? You think you'll like that?”

Thor grinned. “Maybe.”

“Oh, you are so in for it.”

“I love you, too.” The words slipped from Thor’s tongue with easy familiarity. It was something they used to say to each other all the time, until the day they’d stopped. This was the first time Thor had said it since then. Loki hadn’t yet.

“I do love you,” Loki answered quietly. “Let’s go upstairs.”


	21. Chapter 21

Most people thought that Thor was utterly incapable of being subtle. That he was direct and forthright to the point of foolhardiness. Loki suspected that their continuing safety depended upon Hela believing it; that, as long as she could rely upon him to act without thinking, then the fact he hadn’t acted proved to her that he hadn’t thought. Loki knew better than any of them that his brother was perfectly capable of subtlety, of slow deliberation and slow execution when he deemed it best.

Thank fuck he wasn’t doing any of that right now.

The minute they reached the upstairs landing Thor was picking Loki up and carrying him to what was Thor’s - but rapidly becoming their – bedroom. He locked the door behind them before setting Loki back on his feet and Thor was stripping him with desperate haste and sinking to his knees.

If Loki hadn’t already been rock-hard from the moment Thor had whispered what he wanted to do, he would have gotten that way from looking down at him, at his radiant, beloved brother who was gazing back up at him with open adoration and beginning to lean forward. Thor smiled as he licked a broad stroke up the side of Loki’s cock. It was warm and soft and firm and wet and Loki clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his moan. Thor’s smile broadened, his eyes sparkling wickedly as he repeated it on the other side, this time pausing to trace the head of Loki’s cock with the tip of his tongue.

“Ah! Fuck, Thor, I...”

“Hmm?”

Thor gave him that hopeful-puppy face he got sometimes and Loki couldn’t help laughing – okay, gasping a laugh – as he answered.

“I can’t believe you’re giving me that innocent look right now. And I think this might be better not standing.”

“That good on my first try, am I?” Thor asked, standing. “Just think how much better I’ll be with practice.”

Loki caught his arm before he moved to the bed and drew him close. He could taste himself on Thor’s lips which, yeah, it was kind of weird but it was also kind of amazing and he deepened the kiss, chasing it, and he could _feel_ the second Thor realized what he was doing.

A low chuckle vibrated against his ribs. “You should get comfy. I’m going to put on some music to drown you out a little.”

It was good one of them still had his brain working because Loki's seemed to have shorted out somewhere on the staircase. Hela had already surprised them once, getting past the creaky step without them noticing, and while it wasn't like they were hiding, their noises felt far too intimate to be shared. He didn’t want to silence himself; he wanted Thor to hear every moan, every little gasp, to know exactly how good he felt, how good he made Loki feel. So Loki rearranged the pillows on Thor’s bed to prop himself up enough to get a good view and settled back against them. He watched with a mixture of impatience and satisfaction as Thor hunted for the exact right album to put on.

“I want you naked, too,” Loki told him as he turned to the bed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The first strains of music were rising from the speakers and Thor took full advantage, making his stripping into a brief but glorious show for Loki’s ravening eyes. Loki drank in every new inch of skin as though it weren’t already inscribed upon his memory and when Thor was nude Loki held out a single crooked finger.

“Come here.”

Thor was hard too, his eyes dark and drinking in the sight of Loki’s pale body stretched out on his red flannel sheets, and he looked hungry and eager and most of all he looked so perfectly happy that Loki could have wept. This was something they both needed, to know that whatever else was happening in their lives they were wanted and treasured and loved. Thor settled between his legs and lowered his head to take Loki’s cock in his mouth, and Loki’s head fell back in bliss.

 

At breakfast Loki tangled his feet with Thor's. Being apart for their showers (which felt like a painful necessity; they needed Hela to think they were too busy with each other to notice what she was doing, but they also needed to act like they were trying to hide it) had felt like an eternity. Loki needed to touch him again simply to set himself to rights. It reminded him a little of those cautionary anti-drug movies they got shown in middle school health class. Addiction had seemed like a sad and frightening thing ah the time, the idea of needing anything that badly simply to feel normal. No one had warned that it was possible to feel like that about a person, or that it could be the best feeling in the world when that person craved you back.

Which Thor did, clearly. The whole ride to school he sat with his right hand stretching back past the buckle of his seat belt so Loki could hold it. They didn't let go until Hela was pulling into the drop-off lane.

“Just a minute,” she said as they were about to pile out. “I've been thinking, boys. I don't feel right leaning you to wander around after school for so long, so I'm going to leave work at 3 and pick you up.”

_Shit._

“We'd hate to cut into your day. I know you must be super busy getting settled in. We can just sit at the coffee shop until you pick us up. I'm sure we'll be fine,” Thor tried.

“That's so sweet of you to offer, my dear,” she crooned, “but it's only two days, and I simply feel too responsible. It seems like you can't even look at the newspaper these days without coming across a story about gangs of horrible criminals.”


	22. Chapter 22

“Okay, I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot, but what the fuck was that?” Loki said before Thor could open his mouth.

“I _know_. Does she know we went to the library? But if she knows we know, why bring us to school? She could just keep us there and call the office and say we're sick…. Oh. Our phones. But that's not enough reason, is it? I mean, she could have gotten our service turned off, but she didn't.”

“And internet. But yeah, she could have and she didn't. So is she fucking with us, or is it a coincidence, or what? I feel like I could deal with things better if I just knew for sure what was going on, even if it was bad.”

Thor gave him a speculative look.

“Huh? What?”

“Welcome to life with you,” said Thor.

“What's that mean?” Loki demanded.

“You keep me guessing. Always have. Remember that time when we were eight?”

Ah. That. Loki chuckled. “Okay. That's fair.”

“And I like it when it's you.”

“Yeah? I like that you like it.”

“So do we think she knows?” Thor asked, forcing them back on topic. Loki would have preferred to continue flirting but there were almost to the door and while people were too busy rushing to escape the cold to notice that two brothers were smiling a little too deeply, it also meant they were about to split up and not see each other again until it was time for Hela to take them home.

“I can't decide.”

“Me either. Think about it more and I'll get a hall pass fifteen minutes before fifth period ends. Eat your lunch fast and come meet me in the bathroom by the gym.”

“Okay. Thor...”

“Yeah?” The crisp air had made Thor’s cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled as brightly as the icicles hanging from the bare-branched trees around them.

“Have a good day.”

“You too.”

 

The teachers were doing their pre-break stuff today because they knew that Friday would be hopeless for teaching.

“If we get through everything I have planned for today, we can have a movie tomorrow,” Ms. Thomson told them. “And if you think it’s much easier for your teachers to pay attention the day before break than it is for you, let me clear that up right now. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that I won’t do a full class tomorrow if you try me.”

Loki liked Ms. Thomson. She was one of the harder teachers at DeVine, but she always let people know exactly what she expected, and she was fair, and she was always willing to help anyone who asked for it. The rest of his morning classes were pretty much the same. One side of his brain followed along while the other was churning, wrestling with the question of whether she knew about their trip to the library and what they'd read. Plus, if she knew, how? Were there GPS trackers buried in their backpacks? Did she have a spy following them? That was crazy, but this was all crazy. Maybe that was how they had to think, too, if they were going to figure stuff out.

He still didn't have an answer when he finished his lunch and raced to their meeting.

Sometimes it was handy to be the brother of one of the school's most popular kids. By the time Loki got there, Thor had already cleared out the bathroom and stationed an eager-looking sophomore outside with strict orders that no one but Loki was allowed in. Loki kissed him hello. He would have used tongue but the bathroom was really gross and he didn't want to get turned on while that smell was hanging in the air because that would just fuck him up forever.

“Any decisions?” Loki asked.

Thor grimaced. “I keep going back and forth. But it's _so_ unlikely she knows. She can't know that we know, can she?”

Loki gave a helpless shrug.

“So if you're okay with it, I say we stick to the plan. Find some solid evidence and take it to the police. Is that okay?”

“It’s okay.”

“We can do this, Lokes. We’re going to finish something that should have been done a long time ago.”

“Yeah. It feels... it feels good.”

“It feels great. I better get back to class. It’s been almost ten minutes and you know how Mr. Almond gets.”

“Fuck. Run.”

Thor gave him a quick peck on the cheek and took off, leaving a curious sophomore peering in at Loki.

 

“It looks like the blizzard’s going to hit this weekend,” Hela told them over dinner that night. “Do we still get snowed in out here, or has global warming taken care of that?”

“Not yet,” Loki answered cautiously.

She nodded. “I’ll leave a little early and stock up at Kroger. Why don’t you find some Christmas cookie recipes you’d like to make? That’s a good snow day activity. Send me a grocery list and I’ll pick up what you need.”

That seemed uncharacteristically thoughtful, Loki felt, but having to mix and chill and sprinkle while keeping one eye on the oven would keep them busy. Maybe it was how she meant to keep them distracted once they were home all day every day.

“That sounds fun. Thanks,” Thor said. “Come on, Loki.”

“Let’s use mine. The monitor’s bigger. Bigger cookie pictures are better,” Loki said as they went upstairs.

“You’re so smart. That’s a really good idea,” Thor answered. His voice, warm and rich, wrapped around Loki like an embrace.

It was a good idea. Or rather, it would have been if it weren’t for Loki’s shitty wifi chip. “I need to get one of those usb ones,” he grumbled, banging on the side of the tower.

“It’s fine. We’ll use mine.”

It was only when they couldn’t get a connection on Thor’s computer, either, that they checked their phones to find they were on data.

“I’ll reset the router. Be right back,” Thor told him.

Loki nodded and waited longer than it usually took. When Thor came back up his face was dark.

“I reset it twice. Nothing.”

“Oh.” Loki paused. “That happens sometimes, though. We don't know it was her.”

“And our phones still work. If she wanted to cut us off, why leave them?”

“That's a good point. Plus, she asked us to look something up. If she turned it off, why do something to make sure we know?... Unless she wants it to look like she didn't. God, I hate this.”

“Me, too. And I don't see what choice we have but to tell her.”

Loki took a deep breath, bracing for the plunge. “Okay. Let's go.”

 

Hela frowned when they told her. “I was using it right before we ate and it was fine.”

“The router’s lit up all red and resetting it didn’t help. I tried twice,” Thor answered.

“Huh. That’s annoying. I’ll call.”

They stood there trying desperately to look natural. Loki’s hands felt like they were suddenly bigger than his head and also were stupid-looking. They listened as Hela asked if there was a service interruption, gave the address, told them her name.

“And that’s the earliest it’ll be back?”

She paused, listening. Loki could hear someone talking, a real voice, not a recording. He wouldn’t have put it past her to call some info line and pretend, but she hadn’t.

“It would have been nice to have gotten advance notification, is all. A postcard or something.”

Another pause.

“Okay. Well, thank you for your help.”

She hung up and sighed.

“Line maintenance. Twenty-four hours minimum, probably thirty-six. Maybe more.”


	23. Chapter 23

“I feel like this situation is getting really serious,” Thor said when they were alone.

Loki blinked twice. “You only decided that now?”

“Of course that's not what I mean,” Thor answered, rolling his eyes. “There's been so many little things, and it kept on seeming like we could deal with it, but with how much they’re piling up… maybe we were wrong. Maybe we should ask for help.”

“But who can we go to? Ms. Jara made it clear that she doesn't care. And what can we tell the cops? There's nothing illegal about your car breaking down or the internet going out.”

“What about Mr. Heimdall? Dad always said he trusted him completely.”

“Mom liked him, too,” Loki agreed. “I think you're right.”

“Then that's what we'll do. As soon as we get to school tomorrow we'll call him.”

“What about when we get connected, though? Like, you know how you call the main number and they ask who you want, and then they put you on hold while they call that person and ask if they want to talk to you? What if Hela hears? The office isn’t that big.”

Thor sighed. “You’re right. But what can we do but risk it? -No, wait. Fenris hasn’t stopped you going into the front room, has he?”

Loki shook his head. “Just the basement.”

“Me too. What if Dad’s rolodex is still in the desk? I haven’t seen her throwing much out.”

Their dad had been a late adopter of cell phones, only switching after that storm three years ago that knocked out the landline to the house for a solid seventeen days. All the stuff that normal people kept in phones was still in that little plastic box. Like the direct numbers for all the company’s executives.

“It’s so hot when you’re being smart,” Loki told him.

“Easy, tiger. We have to get it first.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do. Get it. And we can’t go look tonight, anyway, she’ll notice. We’re better off getting up early and one of us can make a fancy breakfast to celebrate the last day of school while the other one goes to look. That’s a good cover story.”

Loki didn’t even having to put that special tone into his voice that made Thor do whatever he wanted, because he was right. It was the best way to handle the search for the rolodex. He did it anyway. It still sent a thrill trembling through his veins to see Thor’s response.

“It’s hot when you’re being smart, too,” Thor said. His voice had gone husky and his eyes dark all in the last few seconds and seeing him turned on was enough to get Loki fully turned on, too.

“And it’s my turn. You owe me.”

All right, maybe owe wasn’t the right word, but Thor _somethinged_ him. Loki had tried to reciprocate that night, once the stars began to clear from his vision, meeting Thor’s kisses before beginning to kiss his way down his brother’s chest, but Thor had stopped him.

 _Later, okay?_ Thor had said. _That was hot enough, doing that... I think I want to save it until I’ll have a little more time to enjoy it._ So Loki had been waiting his turn to see how smooth Thor’s cock felt beneath his tongue, to learn what sounds he made when Loki’s lips slid down the shaft, to discover if he liked doing it as much as Thor very clearly had.

This time, Thor didn’t say _later._ This time Thor smiled and let Loki walk him backwards to his bed, sitting down when the backs of his legs hit the side of the mattress. Loki rested his hand on the lump in Thor’s jeans and gave it a light squeeze.

“I want this in my mouth,” he breathed. Very nearly the same thing Thor had said to him, and the noise Thor made in response was distinctly satisfying. “But you need to take your jeans off. Everything off. I want to see everything while I do it.”

In seventeen years of life, Loki had never seen Thor move so fast, and that included the time they disturbed a nest of paper wasps the summer Loki was ten. Thor's hands were a blur, tugging at buttons and pulling at zippers and somewhere in there Loki distinctly heard a seam give.

Loki smiled at him. “Eager, are we?”

“I believe I remember someone running for the stairs.”

“Shut up and lie down.”

Thor gave him that open, irresistible grin and did as he was told. “Are you going to be naked, too?”

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Loki teased, but he was already reaching for the hem of his shirt. It was a rich sapphire blue that Thor said brought out the green in his eyes, which made him wear it as often as he could get away with, but it was also that clingy thermal fabric, and slimly cut on top of that, so it wasn’t the most graceful thing to get off. Thor didn’t seem to care, though, his eyes widening appreciatively at the sight of Loki’s smooth skin coming into view.

When Loki was nude he leaned over and drew Thor’s legs apart. His cock looked a lot bigger now that Loki was thinking about having it in his mouth. He tried to focus on moving gracefully as he crawled onto the bed rather than thinking about how embarrassing it would be to gag when Thor hadn’t choked once. And then he was kneeling between his brother’s thighs and looking down at him, his cock thick and red, leaking a little onto his stomach, and there wasn’t any more time to worry.

His first lick was cautious – was that too wet? Was there such a thing as too wet? Had he been breathing through his mouth and making his spit cold and slimy? Or what if it was too dry? How were you supposed know what the right amount of spit even was? - but Thor’s pleased sigh was reassuring. His second pass was more confident.

“Oh, Loki,” Thor murmured. His eyes had fallen shut and Loki watched as he licked his lips, leaving them parted.

It really was _so_ soft, the skin warm and satiny, and it felt so good to make Thor feel good. It seemed ever bigger than it had a minute ago but it also seemed much less important if he made a few funny noises as he adjusted to it. At the end of the next lick, he stretched his lips around the head and gave it a light suck. A rush of bitter salt coated his tongue. It wasn’t the nicest thing he’d ever tasted, but when Thor clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle an abrupt cry it might well have been the nicest thing he’d ever seen.

Emboldened, he slid down, savoring the sounds and restless shifting he drew from his brother. _I love you,_ he thought, hoping Thor could feel it.

What happiness it was, showering his attention on Thor, coaxing him higher and higher. Thor was leaking more but Loki was getting to like it, this visceral sign of his brother’s pleasure. Thor was moving constantly now, a strong hand tangled in Loki’s curls without force. Loki reached up for the other hand and Thor grasped it, squeezing tighter and tighter as Loki redoubled his attentions, sucking a little harder and taking him a little deeper each time until Thor gasped.

“Loki – I'm-”

He was determined to swallow until the first burst of come hit the back of his throat and he jerked away, his free hand taking over, eyes fixed on his brother’s face and fingertips taking in the pulses surging through Thor’s shaft. It was so fucking hot to watch and listen and feel he didn’t dare blink, didn’t dare draw a breath for fear of missing the briefest moment.

When it was over Thor gave a luxurious stretch and opened his arms. “Come here,” he said. His voice was rich and lazy. “I want to take care of you now.”

 

Their morning went exactly according to plan. They got up early and Thor made pancakes and sausages and Loki found the rolodex in the second drawer he checked. He snapped a photo of the card with Heimdall’s office number and dashed to the kitchen, where he was sitting calmly sipping coffee when Hela came down.

“That smells good,” she said.

“There’s enough for everyone. We thought we’d celebrate the start of break,” Thor replied.

“You must be excited. Do you have snowshoes or skis or anything, to get some outside time?”

“No. Nothing like that. Once the blizzard hits, we’re trapped,” Loki answered lightly.


	24. Chapter 24

They were both keyed up on the drive to school, thinking about calling Heimdall and what they'd say and wondering what the hell they'd do if he blew them off. Hela commented on it as they got to the outskirts of town but seemed to accept the excuse that they were just excited about break. 

“See you at three,” she said brightly. She always drove with both hands on the wheel and that was how she sat, too, talking to them through a crack on the door before they leaned back and waved goodbye. 

“Straight through the building and meet me by the cafeteria. We should try to look normal as long as we can,” Thor said as they climbed the stairs. The red brick edifice looked particularly imposing today, as though the architect had specifically intended it to convey welcome to the lawful and doom to the class cutters. Cutting class today was the right thing to do, though. It might even save lives. 

They split at their usual spot. Loki went up a flight to avoid going right in front of Ms. Thomson's door, but he otherwise took his usual path, and in five minutes, just as the bell rang, he and Thor were back together. 

“I got the keys to Fandral's car,” Thor whispered. “I said I needed privacy and he handed them right over. I don't think he believed or was for a phone call but that's okay.” 

It was strange, getting into someone else's car together. It kind of felt like they should make out some, just on principle, but it also felt unfair to Thor's car that it not be the first car they made out in. 

“Here's the number,” Loki said, holding out a jagged slip of paper. 

“You can call if you want,” Thor said. 

Loki shook his head. “Please. I insist.” 

Thor stuck his tongue out at Loki and twisted in his seat to get the phone from his pocket. Loki sat, hands clenched in fists as tight as his stomach, as Thor punched in the numbers. The speaker was just loud enough for Loki to hear the hollow rings, three of them, and then a man's voice. 

Thor jerked the phone from his ear and slammed the red circle to hang up. 

A shard of ice pierced the twisted in Loki's guts. “What?” he asked. 

Thor looked even more scared than Loki felt. “It wasn't him. It was that man. The one who came over to see Hela. That's who answered Mr. Heimdall's phone.” 

“We have to get out. We've got a car, let's take it and go. We can be across the state line before anyone realizes we're gone. Fandral's your friend. He'll understand. We can't go back. It's crazy.” 

But Thor was already shaking his head. “It's our home. We can't give up on it. Think. Think what she'll do to our home if we don't stop her.” 

Thor was right about that. It had only been the early onset of cold weather that had paused all her plans. She'd told them all about what she wanted to do, though. She wanted to repaint and replace until it wasn't their home at all anymore. She said she was putting it back but what she was found was erasing their mother. The soft blue wallpaper with the shiny stripe that could be silver or gold depending on the light… Loki had been little, but he still remembered the day she saw it in the store, her quiet gasp of delight. That paper was next on Hela's list and he knew it was just a thing but he wasn't ready to let it go. 

“Or I'll do it,” Thor said, interrupting Loki's reverie. “If you want to go, I'll give you the keys. But I can't. I have to fight.” 

Loki nodded. “I'll fight, too.” 

Thor turned to him and his heart was in his eyes. “Then whatever happens, we'll know we did our best.” 

“And we did it together.” Loki glanced behind them, making sure the back windows were as solidly fogged up as the front ones were before leaning over the awkwardly placed gearbox for a kiss. “I can't believe Fandral, of all people, has a car that's so hard to kiss in.” 

“His mom picked it out on purpose. I suggest not even looking at the state of the back bench. He's convinced she took out a craigslist ad saying she wanted to buy a sex-free car.” 

“Damn.” 

Thor gave that laugh of his, the one that made Loki feel like midday and wide open skies. “I think people would notice if the car started rocking, anyway.” 

“Mmm. I guess.” 

“And as long as we've got it… I know it's a long shot, but we should go try to see Ms. Jara.” 

“She already let us go with Hela without saying a peep. You really think she’d help us now?” 

“Probably not,” Thor admitted. “But there was something in her that made her want to be a detective. She spent two years getting evidence on Hela’s mom and her gang. You don’t do that if you don’t care. And she has to want revenge for her partner.” 

“We don’t even know if she’s there. She didn’t go to her office once while she was staying with us.” 

“One way to find out,” Thor said. He reached forward and turned the key. 

“I’m going under protest. There’s way better things we could do with a free day and a car.” 

“I’ll buy you a blackberry mocha on the way,” Thor promised. 

Loki smiled and reached for his seat belt. 

She was there. The guy at the front desk gave them visitor badges and sent them up in the elevator without even calling to see if she was free. 

Even better, her door was standing open and she was sitting at her desk reading on her computer. “Hi, Ms. Jara,” Thor said. 

She looked up and sighed. “I thought I was done with you two.” 

“Hela’s up to something. So many weird things have been happening,” Loki told her. 

“You’re not my problem anymore. The courts decided.” 

“We know about her mom. We know she was the kid at the scene,” Thor answered. “And we know about how you got injured and your partner was killed.” 

“Yeah. Which is why I’m not a cop anymore. It’s why I’m here, working on this.” She tapped her nails on the monitor. 

“You know what she is. You have to help us,” Thor insisted. 

“I don’t have to do anything. I don’t take orders from kids.” 

Loki leaned over the desk and reached for her hand in the vague hope that some human contact might melt her frosty determination. “Please help us,” he begged. “You’re the only one who can.” 

She looked up and just as he was sure she was going to tell him to back off she met his gaze and went stiff. 

He frowned. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” 

Her answer came like it was against her will to say. “You have her eyes.” 


	25. Chapter 25

After that everything seemed to happen at once. _Whose eyes?_ Thor was demanding while Loki was asking _So Hela **is** my sister?_ and Ms. Jara was already opening her desk drawer and taking out a fifth of bourbon.

“Get the fuck out of my office,” she hissed. “Get out before I have you dragged out.”

“Please, Ms. Jara, we just need-” Thor begged.

She picked up her phone. “Security to my office. Now.”

Shit. That was the last thing they needed. “Okay, we’re going,” Loki told her.

“You have about seventy seconds,” she said, dodging his gaze.

“I said we're going. You can cancel them. Come on, Thor,” Loki said, trying to drag him away.

“Sixty- five,” she answered.

 

They were still out of breath when they got back to the car.

Loki punched the seat. “She knows stuff. Something she won’t tell me. Why won’t anyone just tell me?”

“I don’t know. But I promise we’ll find out. _I promise._ As soon as we get through this, that’s the number one focus of our lives, okay?”

Loki nodded. He’d slipped on a patch of black ice right outside the front door of the building and had had to ignore the sharp pain in his knee with each step as they ran. Now that he was sitting he didn’t want to do anything else ever again, but the worst was now staring them straight in the face and the minutes ticking down. He prodded at it gingerly as Thor started the car and shoved his way into traffic.

“Now what? We’ve only got a few hours to get ready,” Loki said.

“Weapons. Stuff we can fit in our backpacks,” Thor answered promptly enough to show he’d already thought about it.

“Without making the clerk suspicious,” cautioned Loki. Sometimes when Thor got excited he didn't plan.

“Something for ice. We’ll go to the hardware store at noon so it looks like we’re on lunch break and doing errands for our parents.”

Loki choked on a sob that came out of nowhere. It shouldn’t have hit like that. It wasn't like they didn’t talk about them. Maybe it was from that morning, thinking about their mom’s wallpaper.

“I know,” Thor said gently. “Me, too.”

 

Thor drove around for a while, letting Loki have some time, before parking down the street from Café Nirvana.

“How's your knee feeling? I can bring your drink back if you want,” Thor offered.

“Better,” Loki lied.

He couldn't completely hide the limp when he got out, but walking seemed to help, and by the time they were in line to order it felt almost back to normal. It felt normal to be here, too. Oh, he wasn't used to coming with his brother until recently, and the crowd during school hours was older and quieter than when he usually went, but overall it felt blissfully normal to be in a place he liked, getting his favorite drink with a person he liked. That wasn't so much to ask the universe.

Even better, no one here knew them so they didn't have to hide. They sat on the same side of a booth and tangled their feet together and batted lashes and traded flirtatious glances. Loki caught the barista watching them with an approving smile. He smiled back and she winked before turning away. The respite – an hour in which anyone looking would see only a pair of cute boyfriends who wanted to steal some extra time together before holidays and weather took them apart – filled up a reservoir he hadn't realized was so low.

When it was time to go, they put scarves and hats and gloves on each other because it was so much nicer than doing their own. It felt good to take care of Thor. In the midst of so many unknowns, that was something he knew. _I am someone who takes good care of the one he loves._

They went to the hardware store and got ice picks in the middle of the lunch rush, and then to the mall for a late lunch of their own. It had seen better days, with almost half the storefronts standing empty, but the food court was still bustling and full enough of other teenagers skipping school that even if a truant officer had shown up they would have been to overwhelmed to do anything but yell. Too many people from their school – and too many watching them, wanting to see what Thor was doing and if they could oh- so- casually catch his attention and maybe become his new best friend – for them to be anything more than brotherly.

They got back to school ten minutes before the bell. There was a janitor’s closet down a half-flight of steps by the main door which was universally beloved because the lock had broken years before and never gotten fixed. It was rumored that the janitor at the time had made a deal when it first happened that as long as the student body made a decent effort to not trash the school, that the lock would go unrepaired. It was a good deal for everyone. Loki was using to thinking of it as a place people went to make out or to buy dime bags away from prying eyes, but it was also perfect for them to hide in to return Fandral's keys before joining the flood of bodies pouring out of the building.

Hela was outside in her usual spot.

“Oh, just shove those over,” she said as Loki opened the back door.

The back seat was covered in what looked like trays of sod, but that was impossible. She couldn’t be contemplating redoing the yard in the middle of December, even without a blizzard on the way. He knelt on the edge of the seat and started stacking them diagonally atop each other to avoid crushing the delicate grass.

“What are they?” he asked.

“Trays of sod. They’re for Fenris. So he doesn’t have to go outside during the storm and freeze his poor little feet.”

It was all Loki could do not to snort at that. The thought of Fenris having anything poor and little was laughable. What wasn’t laughable was what this meant: that now Fenris was never going to leave his post guarding the basement.

“That’s thoughtful of you,” Loki said. “I’m sure if he understood, he’d be grateful.”

“Well, I like to do my best.”


	26. Chapter 26

Loki's suspicions about Fenris proved right. The snow didn't even start falling until Saturday night but the dog didn't leave his spot at the basement door for a single instant.

“He's got to sleep sometime,” Thor whispered.

They were in bed with the covers over their heads and white noise playing on the computer. They had agreed that morning that the room probably wasn’t bugged, but there was still the gnawing worry that maybe they were telling themselves that because they were trying not to let themselves recognize how bad things were. So when Thor had put on the noise and turned up the speakers, Loki hadn’t argued even though it sometimes gave him a headache. When Loki pulled the blankets up and shoved handfuls into the narrow gap between mattress and headboard, even though it squished their noises Thor said nothing.

“Could we get past him when he's asleep, though?” Loki asked. “He's so big. I don't know if I can climb over him without waking him up and I like to keep a healthy distance between those teeth and my tender parts.”

Thor slid his hand over and cupped them. “I've gotten pretty protective of those tender parts, myself.”

Loki turned his head for a kiss. Oh, so nice, so easy to get lost… he gave himself a mental shake.

“But not yours?”

“And my own, of course,” Thor agreed. He took his hand away which Loki didn't like but he was the one who had tried to keep them on track so he couldn't exactly complain when he succeeded. Thor continued, “You're right, we can't count on climbing over him. Unless…”

“Huh?”

“Does benadryl knock dogs out like it does people?”

“We can find out.”

Loki reached out from the covers and patted blindingly for his phone, finding it, like always, a little farther than he thought it was. He drew it into their tent and a few quick swipes (and a few slower autocorrect connections) had the information they needed.

“Hela got all that stuff for us to make cookies,” Thor said. “I don't know why she's so into us baking but we could do a special sleepy dog batch.”

“She wants the smell. She said it's Christmas and the house needs to smell like it.”

“Oh.”

They grew quiet after that. They knew only bits and pieces of Hela's life but those fragments didn't make a very happy picture. It wasn't okay, whatever it was that had happened to her. But whether she was hiding her mom in the basement, like Thor suspected, or was embezzling from the company and hiding money in the basement, like Loki thought, those things weren't okay either. Note did there seem to be any resolution to either scenario that worked out for Hela that didn't also hurt the two of them. Or worse.

 

Hela raised a sharply groomed brow when, after dinner the next night, Loki reappeared in the kitchen with his laptop.

“Thor and I are going to binge horror movies and bake some cookies,” he explained.

“Oh. Good,” she said, sounding gratified. “That’s a nice Christmassy thing to do.”

“We won't be in your way, will we?” Thor asked.

“Not at all, darling. I think I’m going to take a bubble bath and turn in early.”

“That sounds nice, too,” Thor said.

“Well, have fun. Don't burn the house down.” She rose and headed for the hall, where Fenris say on guard. “You be a good boy and keep them out of trouble,” she told him.

He made the whuffly sound he only ever made for her, and then a grunt as he settled heavily onto his side.

They put on Army of Darkness and started baking. Lots of small batches, which were a good excuse for taking a long time, but in between the measuring and mixing and switching sheets in and out of the oven there was also plenty of time for kisses and groping and whispering and laughter. Thor smeared raspberry jam on Loki's cheek and licked it off; Loki dusted Thor’s lips with powdered sugar and brushed them clean with his own. If it weren't for what they were about to do, it might have been a perfect winter night.

They waited a solid hour after hearing the bathtub drain before they even got out the benadryl. Peanut butter cookies, they'd decided, having read somewhere that dogs love peanut butter. They were as careful as they could be with the dosage considering they had to estimate his weight. None of this was his fault, either.

It was agonizing, standing there in the hall and watching for signs of sleepiness, then a lowered head, and finally a series of deep, bone-shaking snores. Like knowing a watched pot never boils but also knowing that if it boiled over that someone might die. Scary and boring at the same time. Only when he started snoring did Thor fetch the ice picks from his backpack.

“If it's really Angrabotha down there…” Thor began.

“It isn't. But even if it is, she's a murderer. It's okay to defend ourselves.”

“It's different now that it's time to do it, though.”

Loki, who expected documents about Swiss bank accounts or Cayman Island somethings, or even bags of money, agreed.

“We get proof, we call the cops, and we run. It’s not even snowing yet, we’ll be safe enough. Especially with him out of it,” Loki assured him. That hadn't been part of the consideration in knocking Fenris out for the night, but it was better for all three of them. They just had to be safely away before Hela and her dog woke up. They had hours yet.

Thor braced his hands on the pick's sturdy neck. “Okay. Here we go. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Loki adjusted his grip and nodded his readiness, and Thor opened the door.


	27. Chapter 27

Loki had been frightened of the basement when he was little. It had been sort of fear that sends cold needles deep into the bones and makes the skin come out in goosebumps in a pitiful attempt at mammalian fierceness. The stairs were open on both sides and it was impossible to descend them without the absolute certainty that monsters were lying in wait to reach out their arms and grasp his small ankles. Their parents had a light switch installed at the top of the stairs but it didn’t help; there were too many hiding places in the shadows, and the pale beam couldn’t reach them all. He’d long ago outgrown the fear but now, as Thor took the first step down, it felt as though it had been a warning, a terrible foreshadowing of this terrifying moment. Up until the very instant Thor opened the door, Loki had been certain there was no one down here. Now, though, as he followed Thor on their cautious way down, Loki’s eyes were fixed on his brother’s feet. Watching for something to grab at him. Watching for someone he’d have to hurt.

If Angrabotha was there, and if she had a gun... no, better to keep her a childhood ogre who draws children into her gingerbread house to eat. That was something that could be fought. Didn’t Hanzel and Gretyl get safely away?

Thor’s voice shattered the stillness and made Loki jump.

“We’re both armed,” he announced.

They turned to stand with their backs together, pivoting counterclockwise as smoothly as they had a single body. The same instinctual knowledge of the other’s bodies that let them eat with a single place setting, to meet every desire before it was fully known by the one who wished it, now put to grim utility.

The smell of dust was stronger than he remembered, and different. Not the familiar dust of dryer lint and sticky spiderwebs but something damper, colder. It coated his skin and his mind flashed, horribly, to a scene from an half-forgotten movie, where the main character was buried alive.

Loki surveyed the familiar space as they slowly turned. In the far right corner, under the kitchen where the water supply could go straight upwards, were the washer and dryer, the rickety shelf above them still threatening to fall from the wall and dump its bottles of detergent and softener. The wall directly opposite the stairs was barren as always; the next corner, on the left, was tight with shelves and storage boxes that looked just as cobweb-strewn as the shelves themselves. And then Loki was peering over the staircase to where a round steel cap showed where coal had once been delivered the heat the old house. The tall furnace sat beside it, cobwebby ducts running this way and that, an expandable gas line for safety despite the furnace being bolted to the wall and this area not getting earthquakes anyway. His eyes turned to the last corner, where more storage boxes were gathering dust.

They did two full rotations, intense eyes racing over every inch of the open, dusty space before moving as one to see beneath the stairs. If anyone was waiting – if anyone was hiding – that was where they had to be. Their steps were slow and sure, left, cross the right over, left again. Thor kept himself facing the shadow and Loki's ears were ringing with the horrible expectation of a shot. Every second, every heartbeat suddenly felt like his last.

It was the easing of tension in Thor's body, felt where their backs pressed together, that told him what his brother was going to say.

“There's no one here.”

Along with mingled relief at their safety and disappointment at not having solved the mystery, there was a vein of curiosity in his voice and Loki turned to follow Thor's gaze.

There was a floodlight beneath the stairs, clearly aimed at the floor. Beside it rested a pickaxe that made their ice picks feel very small. How useless their little weapons would have been in the face of danger. How helpless they would have been.

Loki stepped closer and reached into the looming shadows to turn on the light.

They recoiled, blinking and squinting in the sudden glare.

“No papers, either. If she's embezzling, she's not keeping the records down here,” Thor noted.

“Yes, thank you for pointing that out,” Loki said. 

So they'd both been wrong. But they _had_ been right that she was doing something down here. The concrete floor beneath the stairs was smashed to bits. The jagged blocks cast long harsh shadows along the floor. They peered through them, down to the compacted soil that had been revealed. Dirt. Only dirt.

They would find no answers here. 

 

Fenris was still asleep when they went back up. The hall appeared shockingly ordinary now. The same slightly worn carpet runner in mottled shades of red intended to hide both tracked-in dirt and skinned-knee blood when they were young and came running in; the buttery yellow wallpaper printed with pussy willows that looked almost as soft as the real thing. Fenris snorted and twitched in his dream.

They moved silently, putting on coats and gloves and hats. Their boots would be the very last thing, in case their careful treads were still enough to wake Hela. It felt horrible to go now. It felt like giving up. But this had been the last shot and it was time to get out.

Until Thor stretched on tiptoe to peer out the stained glass window that arched above the door. When he turned back to Loki, his face was stricken. 

 


	28. Chapter 28

“It's too late, isn't it, ” Loki breathed. “The storm came early.” 

Thor put on a brave smile. “It'll be okay. We'll figure something out.” 

“I don’t see what there is to figure. It seems like we’re all out of choices.” 

“It’ll look better in the morning,” Thor promised. 

“But-” 

But Thor was either out of cheering platitudes or simply the will to keep spouting them because he shut Loki up with a kiss. It was gentle and quiet, and in it Loki could feel the sadness his brother was trying so hard to hide. He’d always tried to shield Loki from the worst of things. But it was Loki’s job to protect him, too. 

“We'll figure something out,” Loki told him. His lips tickled where they brushed against Thor's. 

Thor nodded and rested his forehead against Loki's. They stood there together until Loki's coat started getting hot. He reached between them with an apologetic glance and unbuttoned it. 

“It's okay. You're right, we need to get this stuff off. I'd agree came down now we'd have no explanation,” Thor said. 

“Snow angels. We saw it had started and we couldn't wait to go out and make snow angels,” Loki replied promptly. “See? I'm a quick liar when I need to be.” 

“Well. Still. I'm starting to get hot, too.” 

“Oh, please. You got hot the summer before your junior year, and you know it.” 

It felt good that he could make Thor laugh, even now. 

“Come on, take it off, take it all off,” Thor teased as he pulled one end of Loki's scarf. 

Half of Loki's brain was still on the fact that they were trapped, which was maybe the biggest sign yet of how bad their situation was. But Thor looked like he was feeling a little better and the ears no way in hell Loki was going to risk that, so he gave a sexy little wiggle and made a show of taking off his gloves. 

“Okay. Your turn,” he told Thor. 

Thor waltzed up and down the hall as he took off his outdoor stuff before piling it over one arm and finishing by giving Loki a dip. 

“Goofball,” Loki said fondly. 

They put their stuff back in the closet, quiet now, determined not to think about how much it felt like giving up. 

“Bed?” Thor asked. 

“God, yes,” Loki sighed. 

They were halfway up the stairs when an idea struck him. Once they were in bed, shivering from the chill of the basement they felt only now, he again pulled the blankets over their heads. He held his phone between them so Thor could see. 

Heimdall’s profile wasn’t on the company’s site anymore; that would have been easiest, but Hela moved efficiently. Still, it wasn’t a common last name, and after an image search they had a full name to look for. His LinkedIn page still showed him as CFO – no help there – and there wasn’t any email or social media listed. His college was listed, though. And the college, bless them, offered alumni free email accounts. First initial and last name. Numbers added when needed. 

Loki opened his email app. As long as he had been first ‘I. Heimdall’ to have graduated from Chalchis University, they could still get in touch. 

_Dear Heimdall,_ he began before Thor took the phone from his hand. 

_Dear Mr. Heimdall,_ it said when he gave it back. 

Loki stuck his tongue out at his brother and continued to write. 

_You have to help us. There’s so many weird things happening and no one will listen to us. Dad always said he trusted you completely and we don’t know where else to turn. We think Hela is the reason you’re not at the company anymore so we assume you know who she is. In case you don’t, she’s Dad’s first kid and_ \- he paused a brief moment - Thor’s sister. She got custody and is living here and now going to the office. She has a huge dog that won’t let us in the basement and when we managed to get past it we found she’s got bright lights and she’s breaking up the concrete floor. Her mom ran this criminal group and we think she’s out or Hela took over or something but we don’t know what she wants with our house. The detective who investigated the case is a social worker now, Ms. Jara. She wouldn’t talk to us but maybe now that we know about the basement she’ll listen. Since Hela moved in Thor’s car died and she claimed a tow truck is coming but we don’t trust it, and then the internet went out. All we have are our phones. We think she had us followed when we went to the library and looked her up because after that she wouldn’t give us any free time after school. Now with the storm we can’t leave the house and we don’t know what to do and we need help. 

His finger left trails of images as it raced across the LED screen, making his head swim, but it was desperately urgent that he get down every thought before stress and exhaustion made him forget. 

When he was done he passed it to Thor for approval. 

Thor hit _send_ and slid his hand down between them to squeeze Loki’s in his own. 


	29. Chapter 29

Loki was woken by Thor's finger jabbing into his side. 

“Loki, wake up!” 

“Fuck, how does someone so beefy have such bony fingers?” he groaned. 

“They're not bony, you’re just cranky. Gimme your phone.” 

“It's the middle of the night, he hasn't-" Loki caught himself just in time. “There's not going to be anything interesting.” 

“I thought of something I want to look up. History class assignment. I had an idea and I want to look it up right away.” 

That was promising. Loki felt better after writing Heimdall but more ideas were always better. But still. “Get your own phone.” 

“It's charging on my desk. Yours is right there.” 

Loki suppressed a grumble and did as he was asked, sliding his hand into the brisk air and patting around until he found it. 

Despite what he'd said about the hour he did check his mail before handing over the phone, but there was nothing. 

“Thanks. I think I want to write about the tools they used to calculate the first space flights. Like how you see them in the movies using slide rules and stuff? That would be so cool. Here, look,” Thor jabbered. 

It was cool. Loki knew it was cool because it was a paper Thor had written a year ago and couldn't shut up about. Which made it an easy thing for him to talk about now while his fingers were googling something very different. 

_How to Hotwire a Car,_ it said at the top of the page. 

Loki's heart jumped in his chest. Of course. They didn't need Thor's car, they just needed _a_ car, and while there was no doubt Hela kept the keys under tight control, maybe they could avoid the need. 

“That's a great idea,” Loki said. “You should take some screenshots so you don't have to worry about forgetting anything.” 

If someone had told Loki, back when they first realized they were snowed in, that he'd be feeling this good just a few hours later, he probably would have punched them. But he did feel good. It felt good to have two plans in motion, to be acting rather than waiting to react. 

Almost before Loki knew he was awake the next morning, he was checking his mail again, but there was nothing. After that they moved slowly, indulging in long kisses and the deep glow that came from dressing one another. Despite everything, it did feel like a lazy vacation morning. It made what they found waiting downstairs all the more startling. 

Hela was at the kitchen table, folding paper cranes from a pad of multi colored post-its like her life depended on it. She scarcely even acknowledged them when they said good morning. 

“Those are pretty,” Thor managed. 

“No, they're wrong, it's all wrong,” she muttered. “The snow wasn't supposed to start yet. We were supposed to have time to go get a tree. We were spotted to have a pine tree with white balls, half glass and half that satiny stuff. They're in my trunk. Now we have to use the ficus and it can't hold them so we have to use something else instead but it's all wrong.” 

Loki looked at Thor, who was looking back. 

“I think those will look really good,” Loki said. “We can do the other stuff next year.” _Like there was any chance of that._

She stared at him with hollow eyes. “I'm just trying to make things how they're supposed to be. No one else cares. No one else even remembers.” 

Whatever this mood was that she was in, Thor apparently thought it best for them to play along. 

“We care,” he told her. “Maybe threw snow will melt in time for us to get a tree before Christmas.” 

“Or we can celebrate Orthodox Christmas. That's not until January,” offered Loki. 

She spoke as though they had said nothing. “Do you know how to make these?” 

Loki shook his head. “We're quick learners, though.” 

She showed them how, walking them through each step, and the rest of their morning was spent making far more ornaments than their mother's small ficus could possibly bear. She didn't let them stop until the entire pad of paper was gone. Well before they were done, Loki's stomach was cramping with hunger. 

“We'll unbend some paper clips and hang these after breakfast,” she announced. It was a quarter to two. 

“I'll make omelettes,” offered Thor. “What does everyone want?” 

Loki asked for his usual, plain cheese and way too much of it. Hela wanted olive and spinach. Loki started the coffee while Thor dug out the ingredients, and then Loki sat down with his back to the wall. He hadn't felt his phone vibrate in his pocket but it wasn't unusual for him to have missed a notification. 

He hadn't missed anything. There was no signal for anything to have been delivered. 


End file.
